Raja and Kanimozhi met Karunanidhi at his Gopalpuram residence.
Stalin gets a new title...
The 65-year-old Stalin's elevation comes about three weeks after the death of his father and party president M Karunanidhi.
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.
DMK's TR Baalu said the name of the person cannot be divulged as of now and parried questions on whether the candidate is among the five persons whose names have been made public. "Madam will announce it shortly. Not today... At any point within this week," he said.
Freebies galore and populist schemes under the popular 'Amma' brand became the hallmark of late Jayalalithaa's tenure as Chief Minister, helping her steamroll arch-rival M Karunanidhi's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in this year's assembly polls.
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.
A time has thus come when state encouragement for rural students led to empowerment of the socio-economically marginalised sections of the population. It included women. Today, with greater exposure and consequent enlightenment, it has gone beyond 'empowerment' to become 'entitlement', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam president M K Stalin on Friday launched his 30-day pre-election campaign in poll-bound Tamil Nadu from Tiruvannamalai near Chennai and vowed to deliver a pro-people government with focus on development if his party was voted to power in the coming assembly elections, likely to be held in April-May.
The Congress and DMK are in alliance in Tamil Nadu.
Factionalism between OP Panneerselvam and Edappadi Palaniswami, the dominance of the BJP, the ruling DMK having a strong face in the form of CM Stalin, 'community and region-based politics', corruption charges against former ministers, and lack of a proper ideology are the major challenges the party is facing in the state.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Indicating that India was in "safe hands" with the BJP, he said "You can protect the country if you accept the BJP's ideology."
At a time when the AIADMK has chosen the late Jaya's personal aide to lead the party, M K Stalin re-enters the scene with greater credibility and better clarity of his own role in the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Back of the envelope calculations put government expense on each of the new schemes promised by the DMK and the AIADMK at tens of thousands of crores. But then, neither party has said how they are going to also address the mounting debt burden either, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
The deaths of Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi within months of each other neutralises any sympathy factor their parties may hope to gain from. What's more, by removing charismatic leaders from the fray, it also levels the field for others, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chief Minister MK Stalin has shown that he is cut from a different cloth when it comes to embracing what is current, modern and absolutely necessary. Thus, even while retaining the spirit and content of the pan-Tamil, Dravidian socio-political and socio-economic ideology to the 't', his government has also acknowledged the need to accepting scientifically-proven facts in operational matters, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Earlier, KCR had met West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as part of efforts to build a non-Congress, non-BJP third front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Anything can happen, says a young Congress leader.
Stalin's personal intervention in the Adheenam row may have contained the avoidable political damage and social tensions at least for now, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
From social engineering to bearing the cost of COVID-19 treatment to financial reconstruction of Tamil Nadu's debt the debutant chief minister is emerging as a leader with a difference, says Shjne Jacob
All set to take over as the Leader of the Opposition in the 15th Tamil Nadu sssembly, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam scion M K Stalin on Tuesday vowed to do justice to the post and take up people's issues in a constructive way in the legislature.
The former India captain was speaking at a felicitation function organised for CSK for winning the 2021 edition of IPL.
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.
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.
Issues such as seat sharing and being part of the DMK led government were not a priority now and that the main goal was to ensure that DMK comes to power.
As the Opposition leader in the state assembly, M K Stalin has to fend off the ruling AIADMK on the one hand and prevent the re-emergence of a non-Dravidian Opposition on the other -- but his immediate challenge comes from within, in the form of his wheelchair-bound octogenarian party leader and father M Karunanidhi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Overall, the Thalaivi trailer is a convincing experience, says veteran Tamil Nadu politics watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
In what appears to be a patch up bid after going hammer and tongs against his younger brother, expelled Dravida Munetra Kazhagam leader M K Alagiri on Wednesday claimed differences with M K Stalin were based on policy and principles and nobody can 'create a rift in our family relationship.'
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.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M Karunanidhi on Tuesday chose to keep the cards close to his chest on the issue of which political outfit his party would strike an alliance to fight next year's Lok Sabha polls.
Thalaiva's name and photo will appear on the logo and label of the channel.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Modi government wants to have a smooth relationship with the DMK government.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's son and Treasurer M K Stalin is among the five persons named by the party to hold seat-sharing talks with alliance parties for the coming parliamentary elections.
The BJP top leader's Tamil pitch assumes significance Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had some days back alleged that the saffron party had no respect for Tamil language and culture.
N Kalyanasundaram started saving up last year so that he could feed the hungry during the second COVID lockdown.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M Karunanidhi was re-elected as party president for the 11th time in a row by the newly constituted general council on Friday.
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