If Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai bought it in 2015, did he get prior approval from the Union home ministry, and did he include it in his annual wealth returns, sections of the media want to know. N Sathiya Moorthy on the curious case of the 'Rafale' watch.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin called on Ravi at the Raj Bhavan here and urged him to expeditiously send the Bill to exempt Tamil Nadu from the purview of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for getting Presidential assent, an official release said.
Already, there is a feeling even within the BJP's AIADMK ally that the BJP is overdoing things on the ED/I-T front, as corruption is not an election issue in the state -- as long as the people are otherwise not excessively unhappy with the governing party, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The DMK may get a little more than 50% of the minority vote.' 'The AIADMK always gets over 10% of the minority vote.'
He also launched a strident attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was 'globe-trotting', afraid of facing questions over the Manipur violence.
'There are many things we need to work on.' 'At the heart of it is, one, the extent of inequality, which is not good for democracy and nation; two, a structural decline on how a country ought to function, how people should be held accountable, whose role is what.'
The PM is seen as slipping up in confidence levels as aired by his 'exposure' of the BRS on a crucial issue as alliance negotiations, which is not done under normal circumstances, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A total of 13 functionaries from the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday quit the party to join its alliance partner the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
Modi also congratulated individual members of the Indian contingent who won board medals. "These are outstanding players who have shown remarkable grit and tenacity. Best wishes for their future endeavours," he said.
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The aftermath of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan has led to an argument that there was no religion as Hinduism in Chola times.
Instead, there was only Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc, and that the Cholas were Saivites, and hence not Hindus, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has to endorse chief minister K Palaniswami's candidature for the CM's post for the polls and agree to its other terms -- like non-participation in government -- and if not, should rethink of its 2021 electoral options, the AIADMK indicated at its meet.
At the Leo fete, Vijay had this also to tell his fans: 'I know you all are in my heart. But today, I also know that I am also in the hearts of all of you...' A typical politician's line, did you say, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin is preparing the DMK to go the whole hog in making 'federalism', 'Tamil self-respect' and 'communal cohesiveness' the party's poll plank next year, and package the BJP and its possible allies, as 'divisive' and 'reactionary', predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK will not stop till Tamil Nadu got exemption from the central qualifying test, Stalin said.
'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
During the day-long debate, the lines between science and religion often got blurred with many invoking religious texts and the contribution of 'rishi munis' to highlight India's tryst with the extra-terrestrial world.
Throwing his party's weight behind the Congress to ensure an Opposition win in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday said arguments by some favouring a front without the grand old party should be rejected.
'Religion must be in your home and in the temple, not in government functions.'
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
He wanted to depict the DMK as a force fighting for a separate country, Elangovan alleged.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Thursday allotted six constituencies to ally Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi for the April 6 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
Brand India's societal divisions and distortions have remained as much relevant in 'liberal' America and Europe as it still is in the structurally stratified Indian society of the 21st century, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam deputy general secretary A Raja stoked a controversy over his Shudra remark and drew the Bharatiya Janata Party's ire with the saffron party accusing him of spewing hatred against a community to appease others.
DMK Parliamentary Party leader T R Baalu told reporters in New Delhi that Tamil Nadu Law Minister S Regupathy, who led a delegation, handed over to the President what state Chief Minister M K Stalin has 'written', but repeatedly insisted the content of the communication was only known to the CM.
Udayanidhi has handed over to the BJP one real issue to draw the line between it and the INDIA alliance, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the assembly polls only two years away, in 2026, any demoralising defeat in 2024, would challenge not only the party's continued relevance but also EPS's leadership, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
They just wanted their angst noticed, and as a symbol of recognition, Jallikattu, restored without the annual ritual of court cases and adjournments, explains N Sathya Moorthy.
It is a sea of men clad in veshtis with distinctive party colour border design seeking votes with a smile and folded hands for their party candidates. The town is abuzz, with electioneering at its peak, and teeming trendy cars criss-cross the busy roads and bylanes bringing in more and more leaders from elsewhere for campaign.
At the end of the day, Stalin expressing solidarity with an arrested colleague is one thing, especially if he too felt that the minister had been wronged, but for him to retain the person in office sets a bad precedent, which would not go unnoticed by voters, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
At the same time VK Sasikala, confidante of late party matriarch J Jayalalithaa is staking claim to the late leader's legacy.
Opposition leaders on Saturday lauded the Congress for its victory in Karnataka and thanked the people of the state, saying that this win has showed that 'Modi is not invincible'.
The Tamil Nadu assembly bill seeking exemption to the state from the ambit of the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test has been sent to the Centre for presidential assent by Governor R N Ravi, Chief Minister M K Stalin said on Wednesday.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
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