The actor met with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and discussed the political situation in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
A combative Rao, who claimed the I-T search warrant did not have his name, repeatedly invoked the legacy of former chief minister, the late J Jayalalithaa, and asked if raids would have occurred at his office had she been alive.
'When you enter our secretariat, you are insulting us.' 'It is the seat of government of the state of Tamil Nadu,'
By aligning with the BJP, even if they were arm-twisted into doing so, the AIADMK leadership has yielded their political space in the state to the aunt-nephew duo of Sasikala-Dinakaran, and the parliamentary election to the DMK-Congress combine, says A Ganesh Nadar.
A former BJP Rajya Sabha member Ramaswamy was ailing for some time and was in the hospital.
Allotting seven seats to smaller allies, AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on Monday released the list naming candidates for the rest of 227 seats for which she held interviews for ticket aspirants from across Tamil Nadu in the past two weeks.
AIADMK leaders want Chinamma to succeed Amma as party general secretary, but it is not a done deal yet.
Though EPS has sworn peace for now, or so it seems, his camp is said to be considering the possibility of calling an early meeting of the party's general council, to get a mandate in his favour before things went out of control. Ground-level indications are that OPS had lost his limited base, which alone had forced him to patch up with the other, reportedly at the instance of the BJP ally at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Sasikala went to jail in a 19-year-old case.' 'Dinakaran went to jail in a case of attempting to bribe the Election Commission.' 'How can you link the BJP to these two cases?'
While there is likely no bar on Jayalalithaa meeting with Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his cabinet colleagues, she may not see senior government officials or see official files.
'More than 90 per cent of the party cadres are with OPS.'
For V K Sasikala, election as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislature party leader to pave her way to become the chief minister, marks continuance of the legacy of late Jayalalithaa who also held the two posts, allowing her to wield complete control over the party and the government.
'One thing is clear from what happened last night; both sides are being manipulated by the same party with a lot of wrong inputs.' 'I see a hand in Delhi doing the puppet act on both sides.'
DMK leader MK Stalin is concerned that a no-trust move would force the EPS faction to patch up with not only the OPS group but also the TTV camp and also get the 'Two Leaves' poll symbol unfrozen, which could upset his party's electoral apple cart, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Tamil Nadu, Divya Nair encounters jallikattu, a ban on colas and a water shortage.
She has been given the job to make candles and incense sticks.
For now, Edappadi K Palaniswami is in the saddle in Tamil Nadu, and firmly so. Both inside the party and the government, he has made OPS a yes-man, as the latter used to be under Jayalalithaa, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Of equal importance was the AIADMK's precarious assembly membership, what with 11 of its MLAs including deputy chief minister OPS facing court cases for disqualification and by-elections due in another 21. To shore up the party's numbers for anticipated eventuality on the 11-MLAs' front, the AIADMK leadership in general and chief minister EPS in particular, were even more focussed on assembly seats than LS seats, just now,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The infighting in the AIADMK has made it weak on par with the DMK and other parties, says R Rajagopalan.
Continuing their protest against the conviction of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa for the third day, party workers and sympathisers on Monday observed a fast and staged demonstrations across the state.
Did Jayalalithaa, who was also in jail then, know about these transactions?
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
If the people of Tamil Nadu stop deifying their leaders and start evaluating them more objectively, the political masters too may change their wayward behaviour, argues Sudhir Bisht.
With DMK's M K Stalin coming into his own, and the rival AIADMK too leaving no space for third parties, Tamil Nadu will remain a Dravidian stronghold for a long time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'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.
It should not surprise anyone if either of the contending parties in the 'TN speaker's case' comes up with a submission for referring the matter of 'speaker's powers' to a Constitution Bench. In political terms it could buy more time for the Edappadi camp, to settle down and stabilise itself, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a spontaneous outpouring of grief, thousands of people bid an emotional farewell to former President APJ Abdul Kalam who was on Thursday laid to rest with full state honours in his home town here amid chants of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Executives feel political and other turmoil will hit plans, funds flow; govt says fears valid but will prove wrong.
The acquittal allows her to plan a new political path and also prepare her party for the assembly elections scheduled next year.
The BJP's national leadership seems to have convinced itself that with a weakened, post-Jaya AIADMK for company, they should be able to strike roots before long, and start by winning about 10-15 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The apex court's decision, which was handed down in eight minutes, has dashed any hopes for the Jayalalithaa aide to become CM.
Considering that all sides to the game feel being targeted by the BJP-ruled Centre through taxmen and their ED/CBI counterparts, both factions may not rule out the possibility of patching up after a time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu doesn't really want to antagonize Karnataka in any way that could have any sort of bearing on the case against party chief Jayalalithaa. However, it is under pressure back home over backing a farmers' bandh call against check dams being proposed by the neighbouring state.
But not for too long, as TTV Dinakaran can still play spoilsport, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
TTV Dinakaran's road to reaching the poll stage could still be strewn with legal difficulties, as much as political problems from other new players, like actors Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Post-Jayalalithaa AIADMK cannot take on the Narendra Modi dispensation like their late charismatic leader did it on several occasions in the past, says R Ramasubramanian.
If either faction of the AIADMK failed to muster a floor majority, then the governor would be called upon to ask MK Stalin as the leader of the opposition if he would like to try his hand at government formation.
Nine hundred and forty-seven people are said to have died in grief after J Jayalalithaa's demise on December 5. But how true is this claim?
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