erala and Tamil Nadu will be going to polls on May 16 and ahead of the assembly elections, Rediff Labs analyses who's been making the most buzz
They teamed up with a former AIADMK leader KC Palanisami and appealed to the AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and Panneerselvam to merge their factions and strive for the united AIADMK's victory in the 2026 assembly election.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench will hear petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, on April 16. The petitions, including those by politicians and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, were filed in the top court challenging the validity of the newly-enacted law. The Centre has filed a caveat in the apex court, seeking a hearing before any order is passed.
From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.
The government and opposition parties on Monday reached an agreement to break the impasse in Parliament with dates announced for discussions on the Constitution in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami has asserted that alliances are formed only at the time of elections and declined to categorically say if his party would align with the BJP for the 2026 Assembly polls. Palaniswami met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday and brought to his attention several issues faced by Tamil Nadu, including the need for funds release, the implementation of the Godavari-Cauvery river linking plan, and a probe into the "TASMAC scam." He said that while the party would decide on an alliance at the time of the election, he did not rule out a tie-up with the BJP.
Ramachandran, an OPS loyalist who took part in the meeting, said the former chief minister would soon meet VK Sasikala, the confidante of former party supremo J Jayalalithaa.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
The stage is set for the second by-poll of the year in Tamil Nadu at Pudukottai on Tuesday where former friends All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam will fight each other, with Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam choosing to skip the contest.
The BJP leader said his party was committed to fighting against corruption and it would reflect in its proposed statewide yatra titled En Mann En Makkal (my soil, my people), ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Kanimozhi, who has been actively campaigning for the April 6 assembly polls, has cancelled her programmes after testing positive for the virus.
Stalin, in an interview to a daily, has refuted the FM's allegations, saying "everyone present in the Assembly knew it was a drama enacted by herself," referring to the late Jayalalithaa.
Actor-politician Vijayakant's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam, launched in 2005 amid fanfare and claims of being an alternative to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, seems to have failed to make much of an impact at the grassroots level, with the party managing just two per cent of total votes polled in last week's civic polls. The ruling AIADMK romped home in all 10 corporations besides many other local bodies.
Opposition and members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G on Wednesday demanded the ouster of chairperson P C Chacko for being "highly partisan" and asked Speaker Meira Kumar to replace him with a new chief. The JPC has 30 members, including Chacko.
The three ills of 'dynasticism, corruption and appeasement' politics must quit India in the best interest of the country, the Bharatiya Janata Party said on Wednesday as it commemorated the Quit India movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi on this day in 1942.
The Tamil Nadu BJP took a jibe at Chief Minister and DMK leader M K Stalin on Friday by extending birthday wishes in Mandarin amid the ongoing 'Chinese flag' newspaper advertisement controversy.
The Samajwadi Party and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam realize the need to highlight popular sentiments against the diesel price hike, reports Kavita Chowdhury
Capitalising on the boycott by main opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance on Friday expectedly swept the by-polls to five Tamil Nadu assembly seats, trouncing actor-politician Vijaykant's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam by impressive margins.
Barring a few, such as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu (74), Union Minister C R Patil (69) and Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna (71), most other ministers attending the WEF represent the next generation of India's politicians.
If the DMK is able to sustain the momentum until the assembly polls, the AIADMK especially and the PMK and possibly the infant TVK too would find it hard to sign up with the BJP, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi, his son M K Stalin. and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam chief Vijayakanth spent far less than the limit set by the Election Commission for poll-related expenses during the April 13 assembly elections.
Dubbing Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as an "evil force", All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday accused it of 'conniving' with ally Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government to create hurdles in Tamil Nadu's progress.
Top Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leaders, including party chief M Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin and daughter Kanimozhi, besides thousands of party workers today courted arrest across Tamil Nadu as part of a 'fill-the-jail' protest against the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government which has "foisted cases" against its cadres.
Yadav said like his Rashtriya Janata Dal, the DMK headed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin was a party that believed in social justice.
While Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has made his national ambitions amply clear, even rechristening his party to aid the process, his Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin insists he is already in the national scene and used his birthday rally on March 1 to not only strongly pitch for the Congress as a force to reckon with in the efforts to dislodge the Narendra Modi-led dispensation at the Centre, but also sought to shoot down the prospects of a Third Front.
Leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have decided to raise the NEET issue in both houses of Parliament on Friday and members will give notices in this regard, sources have said.
For the second consecutive day, Lok Sabha on Thursday failed to transact any business as the proceedings remained paralysed, with angry members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam disrupting the House, seeking an international inquiry into atrocities against ethnic Tamils in the island nation.
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Member of Parliament Ganeshamurthy and Communist Party of India member of Legislative Assembly M Arumugam were arrested on Sunday along with 1,000 workers of different parties when they tried to cross to Kerala to stage a demonstration to protest that government's move to build a dam across Bhavani river in Chittoor.
India on Thursday continued to be evasive on its stand to be adopted on the resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, triggering an angry walk out in Lok Sabha by United Progressive Alliance constituent Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which was joined by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal-United.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Parliament on Thursday shouted slogans over Sri Lankan Tamil issue during the maiden address of President Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament.
The Supreme Court of India expressed concern over the appointment of DMK leader V Senthil Balaji as a minister in the Tamil Nadu government despite pending money laundering cases against him. The court questioned the state government's decision, stating it is "terribly wrong" to appoint a person as a minister while facing legal proceedings. The matter has been adjourned to January 15, 2025.
Coincidentally, the two first-term members got seats adjacent to each other in the House.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa will contest the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls from the temple town of Srirangam in Tiruchirapalli district. Her name finds place in the first list of AIADMK candidates released on Wednesday.
Even a day after the filing of nominations opened for April 13 assembly polls began in Tamil Nadu, the political scene remains unclear, with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam still struggling to put the alliance led by it in shape.
As reports of tension prevailed on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border over the Cauvery water row, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Monday said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu should not give room to turn the feeling of "bitterness" among people of the states into "enmity".
'You can still smell the smoke in the Lok Sabha.'
The DMK government in Tamil Nadu has sparked controversy by replacing the Indian Rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in the logo for its 2025-26 budget. The move has drawn criticism from the state BJP, which accused the ruling party of being "stupid." The development comes amidst the ongoing language row between the Centre and Tamil Nadu, with the latter alleging Hindi imposition by the Union government.
If you are rich and if you have money, you can buy the Indian examination system, Rahul claimed.
The first part of the Budget Session of Parliament concluded on Friday with the Rajya Sabha witnessing a low as some All India Anna All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members broke mikes on the chairman's table.
