'He just said that those who cannot control the violence should go. He did not name the BJP.'
Udhayanidhi's ascension in the party is seen as a precursor to him being given key roles in the DMK in future which is now helmed by his 66-year old father Stalin.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadres are said to be upset over AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi not calling on party patriarch and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, a practice followed by Congress leaders during their visit to Tamil Nadu.
If Muslims face trouble I will be the first person to raise voice for them, says the Tamil superstar.
Will the perceived Narendra Modi wave help the National Democratic Alliance re-enact the 1998 spectacular success in Tamil Nadu when it bagged 30 seats in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is the million dollar question on the minds of the Bharatiya Janata Party workers as the party heads into the April 24 Lok Sabha polls armed with a rainbow combine excluding the two Dravidian majors.
Rajini's call may now force other political parties, including the DMK and the Congress, who are in alliance talks already, to come up with water proposals of their own in their poll manifesto. In a way, this may be a 'tactical victory' for Rajinikanth, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In both places the minority was disproportionately powerful.' 'Few people acknowledge it but at its core the Tamil Nadu problem between the Brahmins and the rest was one of power.' 'In Kashmir the Hindus held most of the land and the accompanying political power, while the Muslims were the peasants and powerless,' notes T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
Speaking to newspersons, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu said the party took strong exception to the DMK organising attacks on Hindu Munnani, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the offices in Tamil Nadu.
"Lord Ram is an imaginary character and Ram Sethu is not a man-made bridge. The Centre should not do anything to disturb the Sethusamudram project," he said.
How will DMDK's decision to join the People's Democratic Front affect the political scenario in TN.
Glowing tributes were paid to the departed leader in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, before the Houses were adjourned for the day.
The DMK chief said it was a 'resounding victory' given to his party led alliance by the people of Tamil Nadu.
The spectacles on the Gandhi bust in Kannur were broken while the Ambedkar bust had red paint splashed across it.
In Tamil Nadu, the alternative to one Dravidian party has been another, and for one actor-politician CM, there is another. Their initial popularity may owe to their filmi charisma, but their continued acceptance owed to their government's policies and programmes targeting the poor and the needy in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dinakaran recalled the difficulties faced by party workers in carrying forward their organisational work without a name.
AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa is likely to make her first public appearance on Friday for a scheduled MLAs meet in Chennai, party officials said.
After Shah said Hindi is the most spoken language which can unite the nation as a common language, Tamil Nadu parties rallied against it.
Modi's non-reference could also imply that the BJP may be keeping its alliance options open vis--vis the AIADMK. It could also imply that the BJP's national leadership had not given up on the DMK returning to power in the state post-poll, and the Centre having to do business with a new government in Fort St George, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the first time in recent times, rebellion was open in the monolithic AIADMK with party workers wanting change of candidates in so many places.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any 'transferrable vote-bank' even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ageing leadership, reckless family-oriented politics, absence of inner-party democracy, lack of debate on core issues within the party are all taking a very heavy toll on the original Dravidian party, says R Ramasubramanian.
Many leaders from non-Hindi states, especially Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, had opposed the policy.
'It may take the AIADMK much more convincing than already, not only to try and bring around even the one-time Muslim voters of the party. 'More importantly, the party leadership may find it even more difficult to convince traditional party voters and cadres, who had admired Jaya's nonchalance to the party and leader ruling the Centre,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Despite drawing a blank in Tamil Nadu, its leaders in the state claimed they should strike roots without using a crutch at this "most opportune" time, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The AIADMK swept the polls winning 37 of the 39 seats, leaving DMK, its rivals, and the BJP to do a serious rethinking before the assembly elections in 2016, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 65-year-old leader's ascent as the DMK chief heralds a new era in the Dravidian party, making him only the second man after his father to be elected as party president.
DMK Working President MK Stalin is worried about divisions in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after the death of Jayalalithaa and keen that it should not affect the functioning of the administration.
The BJP office bearer said if Communists love this country, how did they take part in an "anti-national" event.
What will the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government do to answer the queries and fears of investors who will want to be doubly sure they would not be harassed at a later date, as has been happening to Sterlite, should be interesting to watch, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Reacting to the criticism, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam said the government could not initially allot space at the Marina beach for burying the DMK leader due to pending cases against construction of memorials on the famous sands.
A Ganesh Nadar wonders what Kamal Hassan hopes to achieve with this film.
Tamil Nadu people always vote differently for the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
After an unsavoury courtroom battle, his party won to secure for him the final resting place at the Chennai landmark
'Naidu understands electoral calculus, that the regional parties are yet to gain confidence in Rahul as a vote-catcher,' points out R Rajagopalan.
The 94-year-old leader was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Kauvery Hospital around 1:30 am. The hospital, in a statement, said he was brought there after his blood pressure had dropped.
Natarajan was admitted to the hospital on Saturday with severe chest infection and was put on ventilator support.
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