The BJP calculates that simultaneous polls to Parliament and TN assembly could help it, intent as it is on making the state break from its Dravidian past, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced new relaxations such as resumption of intra-district transportation in 25 districts after a hiatus of nearly two months. Maharashtra Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta has issued an order notifying extension of the lockdown, an official said.
According to the police, the 30-year-old woman, identified as Anuradha, has suffered multiple fractures in both her legs after the truck ran over them. Anuradha, who works as an accountant at a hotel in Coimbatore, is undergoing treatment at a private hospital.
O Panneerselvam should not be surprised if the current controversy that he has kicked off is used to rid him of the party coordinator's post, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the first 90 days of 2021, from January 5 onwards, one Union minister will visit one district in Tamil Nadu every week till the assembly election.
Among the long queues of voters, there were some famous faces too who exercised their franchise.
The decision was taken after a discussion between the disqualified legislators and Dhinakaran in Madurai.
Protests were held across Tamil Nadu with raising of slogans-- "Vendum Vendum Kudineer Vendum" (we want water) and "Edappadi Arasai Kandikirom" (we condemn chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy's government).
It looks as if competing political parties in Tamil Nadu have not grasped the full impact and import of a sizable section of voters possibly staying away from voting -- voters, supposedly with a predictable polling pattern -- owing to the Covid second wave and more so, how it could affect the outcome in individual constituencies and even booths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
Arjunan claimed that some persons belonging to the DMK in the guise of public abused him and his mother.
Also present at Soundarya's reception: Tamil Nadu CM, deputy CM, ministers, other powerful politicians and, of course, movie stars...
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
IMD said on Tuesday that the cyclone has a wind speed of 100-110 kmph and gusting to 120 kmph. The coastal areas of Tamil Nadu are expected to receive heavy rain between November 23-26.
The depression over southwest and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 11 kmph and lay centred at 1130 hrs of Monday over the same region, about 520 km east-southeast of Puducherry and 560 km southeast of Chennai, the Indian Meterological Department said.
After a gap of 10 years, the DMK snatched the reins of power from arch rival AIADMK, with its president M K Stalin leading the party to a stellar performance and in the process, helming the state as chief minister for the first time.
The fracas between Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam on Monday over who will be projected as the CM candidate in next year's assembly polls not only points to a possibility of another vertical split in Tamil Nadu's ruling party but will also come as sweet music for the opposition DMK which in the past stood to gain from the AIADMK's squabbles, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a statement in the House, the chief minister said air ambulance service would be started at a cost of Rs 10 crore to transport critical patients to hospitals.
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.
The workers, who cleaned the statue, demanded the arrest of the culprits and warned that they would intensify their agitation if such incidents recurred, police said.
The chief minister also put forth the demand to stop hydrocarbon extraction project in Neduvasal in Pudukkottai district that has attracted large-scale protests recently.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M K Stalin will try his luck once again from Kolathur constituency in Chennai in the April 6 Tamil Nadu assembly elections while his son Udhayanidhi will make his electoral debut by contesting from the Chepauk-Triplicane segment in the metropolis.
Ending its decade long stint in the opposition, even relegated to the third spot in the House in 2011, the M K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam made a spirited comeback to the ruling saddle to unseat its rival the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Weeks ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, V K Sasikala, expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and close aide of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, on Wednesday announced that "she will stay away from politics," but would pray for the "golden rule" of the late party supremo.
R Rajagopalan predicts that Tamil Nadu won't have single party rule for the first time in its history.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister, who is in Pudukottai on an official visit to review anti-COVID-19 measures and development projects in the district told reporters that vaccination shall cover all sections of the society.
Here is the glimpse of the political turn of events in the state
By getting the Tamil Nadu assembly to act on his very imaginative public declaration to keep petro-chemical industries out of the Cauvery delta, which has traditionally been a DMK stronghold, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has not only set the ball rolling for the assembly elections due a year later but also sent out a strong message to the BJP government at the Centre, which took a unilateral decision to exempt petro-complexes from environmental clearance, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 70-year old first time MP, who was admitted to the Apollo Hospitals on August 10 after he tested positive for coronavirus, succumbed to the illness, a party spokesperson said.
'In the last three to four months the BJP vote share in Tamil Nadu, which was 2.86% in 2016, has gone up to about 5%-6%.' 'The AIADMK will lose the minority votes and others who don't like the BJP and Modi.' 'The AIADMK decided to take the risk to get the 5%-6% votes that the BJP will bring in.'
The Tamil Nadu voter may not be in the mood to test new talent, not when the state and the people are going through unprecedented and unanticipated crises, of which coronavirus is only the first. All of it boils down to an election between the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition DMK next year, with small-timers, had-been parties and promised parties left on the sidelines, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin, 68, was contesting as the chief ministerial candidate for the first time during these polls. He was elected unopposed as the DMK chief in August 2018, after the death of his father, a post that Karunanidhi held for 49 years. That didn't come as a surprise to anyone, as during his lifetime, Karunanidhi, on multiple occasions made his preference for his successor abundantly clear and systematically groomed him for the job.
He demanded an order for CM, seeking a vote of confidence.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde considered the suggestion put forward by the Tamil Nadu government that it was willing to put on hold the local body polls in the nine districts for complying with legal formalities such as a fresh delimitation exercise and for deciding the issue of reservation for women and SC/ST candidates.
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'OPS did not back off.' 'He wanted transparency and he got it.'
It does not stop here, though. According to field information, state ministers, AIADMK candidates and campaigners are asking BJP cadres accompanying them not to carry party flags at common rallies and also avoid their saffron shawl on those occasions. BJP cadres are also asked to stay out of the common campaign when it enters a minority-dominated areas, especially of Muslims, and re-join later, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Even though we are very religious and God fearing, we do not subscribe to the kind of Hindutva they practise, a very hierarchical, Brahmanical, Hindutva.'
Without strategising together, Jayalalithaa's successor, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and M Karunanidhi's son-cum-successor, M K Stalin, have used tough-talking on seat-sharing with allies, to replace charisma that they purportedly lacked, during the run-up to the assembly polls scheduled for April 6, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
