The Tamil Nadu assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill making enforcing dress code and banning entry of persons wearing 'dhoti' in public places a cognisable offence punishable with jail term.
It remains to be seen whether the Governor goes by the AG's advice for a floor test by the two competing claimants for chief ministership or invites Palanisami to form the government.
Given the twin embarrassments of a TTV win and party nominee Karu Nagarajan losing his deposit, polling fewer votes than NOTA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP boss Amit Shah would be pushed to rethink their strategy. Tamil Nadu would thus become a part of the BJP's grander strategy for 2019 rather than a stand-alone affair, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Confidence vote stalled after ruckus by opposition.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
The Palaniswami camp on Friday got a jolt when one of its MLAs R Natraj, a former state DGP, said that he would vote against the chief minister's motion of confidence.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday said it would soon move a no-confidence motion against Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal as it accused him of "deliberately harping on his community to malign" the party.
Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attended the swearing in ceremony, while former AICC President Sonia Gandhi was absent. Chief Ministers of Congress ruled states Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Sukhvinder Singh Sukku (Himachal Pradesh) and several top party leaders were also in attendance.
Vijayakanth's DMDK may play a key role as Tamil Nadu's political parties scramble for allies to capture the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
The Election Commission on Tuesday ordered the delisting of another 86 'non-existent' registered unrecognised political parties, raising the number of such organisations red flagged by the poll panel for failing to comply with electoral rules to 537.
Police later let the legislators off after a brief detention at a marriage hall. Stalin demanded the dismissal of the AIADMK government over the issue of the alleged pay-offs.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
When M K Stalin attended the Jayalalithaa government's swearing-in and the chief minister thanked him for the gesture, a new page was turned in the state's political lexicon, reports B Srikumar.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Clad in black shirts and white dhotis, the AIADMK members gathered in large numbers at the historic Valluvar Kottam in Chennai to stage a fast agitation demanding that Udayakumar be allotted Panneerselvam's chair in the assembly.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
According to state government sources, not only did the governor insert some corrections, but he also initialled the final draft after those corrections had been made, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
After a gap of 10 days, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa turned up at the state secretariat on Wednesday, putting an end to the Opposition's queries regarding her health condition.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
The BJP promised revival of the legislative council in Tamil Nadu, which was abolished decades ago by its ally, the ruling AIADMK, if their combine was voted to power in the coming assembly elections.
Will Annamalai's attacks on the DMK revert the anti-BJP feeling in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The campaign will reach a high decibel level next week when BJP state chief K Annamalai is expected to take up a blitzkrieg campaign against the ruling DMK.
Palanivel Thiaga Rajan was on Thursday relieved of the finance portfolio by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday assured the state assembly of appropriate legal action on the allegation of sexual harassment of women students at Kalakshetra Foundation, an institution under the Centre's ministry of culture.
A resolution to this effect was passed at the party's general body meeting in Hyderabad, party sources said.
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YSR Congress President Y S Jaganmohan Reddy said that he would undertake an indefinite fast in Hyderabad from on Saturday against the Centre's decision to divide Andhra Pradesh.
As the petition points out, new medical colleges entail adjunct government hospitals, thus making specialised medical care that much more accessible to the vast majority of population that otherwise could not afford high-cost medical care in the private sector, N Sathiya Moorthy points out.
'What we see here is puppetry. The string is with the BJP.' 'All the puppets here are dancing to the direction the BJP pulls the strings.'
Udhayanidhi, the 45-year old actor-producer is hailed as the "rising sun" by DMK workers, in obvious reference to the party's Rising Sun symbol.
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.
An interesting multi-cornered contest is on the cards for the urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu scheduled for February 19 with opposition parties, which were with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam till a few days ago, set to take on the ruling DMK banking on their respective party's own strength.
'There are many things we need to work on.' 'At the heart of it is, one, the extent of inequality, which is not good for democracy and nation; two, a structural decline on how a country ought to function, how people should be held accountable, whose role is what.'
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 Supreme Court Monday rued the 'general practice' of speakers delaying decisions on pleas seeking disqualification of lawmakers and the subsequent arguments that courts should 'stay away,' while hoping that the West Bengal assembly speaker would decide on such a plea against Mukul Roy who defected to the Trinamool Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party after the state polls.
A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai said it has perused the judgments submitted and was of the view that the issue does not need consideration by a larger bench.
The interim order was passed on petitions by Stalin and Dinakaran loyalist MLA P Vetrivel.
Here's how brokerages across the country are interpreting the exit polls.
The State Election Commission on Friday informed the Calcutta high court that it has requisitioned 822 companies of central forces for the July 8 panchayat polls in West Bengal.
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
