'Sasikala, already determined to keep both the party and CM's post for herself, might not be able to do it, if she were to wait any longer,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The AIADMK has no Number Two, frankly it does not even have a Number Hundred and Two. There is the Numero Uno, and there is everybody else -- a point that was made very clear when Jayalalithaa made her ministers take the oath of office in unison on May 23. What, after all, was the point of having them do so individually when they lack individuality?'
AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa is all set to return as Tamil Nadu chief minister for the fifth time following her acquittal in the disproportionate assets case.
Should Sasikala seek to follow Jayalalithaa's footsteps in the matter, and if at all she is not disinterested in keeping the twin posts together, the by-election to Jayalalithaa's constituency R K Nagar could be the starting point, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The members, whose terms are ending, include union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan, J P Nadda, Thaawarchand Gehlot and Ramdas Athawale.
One of the most prominent leaders of the socialist movement in the 1970s, George Fernandes was a senior Janata Dal leader before he founded the Samata Party.
The problem for OPS lies in the fact that most party MLAs believe Sasikala's clan was the force behind their obtaining the party nomination as much as it was Jaya's charisma that won them their seats in the May 2016 assembly polls.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
With election campaign ending in Tamil Nadu before it goes to polls on Thursday, N Sathiya Moorthy lists a few questions uppermost in the minds of voters.
As per the affidavit she filed on Friday along with the nominations for the bypoll, Jayalalithaa has total assets of Rs 117.13 crore, which include Rs 45.04 crore of movable assets and Rs 72.09 crore of immovable assets.
More than the traditional Dravidian political rivalry that's now on display, it's boiling down to father-son one-upmanship within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
At 70, going by hospital records made public, most age and health-related arguments put out against super-star Rajinikanth's entry into politics, before he withdrew citing a 2016 kidney-transplant, hold good for Sasikala, too, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP is still short of the halfway mark of 123 in the 245-member House, but can now muster a 'working' majority with help of allies, friendly parties, some Independents and nominated members.
The average asset of a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament is Rs 20.17 crore, says a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms. It also says that 67 per cent of Rajya Sabha MP's are crorepatis.
Verifiable 'distress-sharing' of available water may still be the way out of the Cauvery water row, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
With a tagline "Dui hajaar uneesh, BJP finish, the West Bengal chief minister met several opposition party leaders as well as Bharatiya Janata Party critics and in-house rebels.
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.
Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK may choose to capitalise on the confusion within opposition ranks and hope to ride to power on Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's popularity, writes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In writing to the government for a change in the law, the Election Commission has actually acknowledged the future possibility of countermanding polls to curb the use of money power, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
'When Gabbar Singh says 'Kitne aadmi they,' visitors can deliver the dialogue that follows: 'Do sarkar.'' The Sholay magic might just come alive in this 3D virtual reality village.
Mayawati was outmanoeuvred by the BJP in the race for the Rajya Sabha in Uttar Pradesh just days after she helped the Samajwadi Party snatch two Lok Sbaha seats from the saffron party in bypolls.
Congressmen are watching carefully how Rahul positions himself and manage the grand old party, reports Aditi Phadnis.
The saffron party is assured of victory in eight of the ten seats in UP going by its dominant numbers in the state assembly.
OPS is just now friendless in the party's second-line, but the situation could change as and when Governor Rao arrives in the state capital, and sets the constitutional ball rolling, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Opposition allege that Rs 13.5 crore has been added erroneously in the calculation of income.
'Going by his political conduct over the past 15 years since first becoming chief minister, he has made enough enemies among equals as friends and followers.' 'They could gang up and that could mean a lot for AIADMK politics to handle,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The December 1996 raid came following a complaint by BJP's Subramaniam Swamy naming late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Panneerselvam had opposed the petition saying the whip was issued only to the 122 MLAs who were then camping in a resort and not his erstwhile group.
O Paneerselvam did not even sit in Jayalalithaa's office chamber and left her seat vacant in the assembly. This time Amma is not coming back and he has a large number of challenges awaiting him.
It appears that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being very responsive to Jayalalithaa's demands, be it on the secure release of the abducted Tamil Nadu priest to the fishermen's issue with Sri Lanka, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
The jallikattu issue has revived pan-Tamil political sentiments especially among youths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chief Minister O Panneerselvam hugged Modi emotionally on a couple of occasions.
Should the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu not make the required five out of 22 by-election seats, or even otherwise, the temptation to poach, especially from the Congress or starting with the Congress may be high on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami's agenda, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Rajya Sabha, the Opposition and the government clashed over technicalities of the passage of an anti-graft amendment bill with the latter insisting that it should be adopted without debate.
In the 2015 bypoll in the same RK Nagar seat, she had declared total assets of Rs 117.13 crore.
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