The results will be announced on May 2.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday conducted searches against Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji and some others as part of a money laundering investigation and held multi-city searches, official sources said.
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.
The Madras high court bench in Madurai on Monday directed transferring the probe into the death by suicide of a 17-year-old girl, allegedly coerced to convert to Christianity, to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The Congress on Monday described as a "blot on democracy" the suspension of its four MPs for the rest of the monsoon session for disrupting proceedings in the Lok Sabha, alleging the government was trying to "intimidate" the party but it would not be cowed down.
The Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the Tamil Nadu government constituting a panel on the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), saying it was not contrary to the orders of the Supreme Court on the matter.
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 party that shall head the alliance would be made known only during the elections and polls were not round the corner now, Chief Minister Palaniswami said when asked if the BJP or AIADMK would steward the combine in Tamil Nadu to fight the polls next year.
Archis Mohan decodes Bharatiya Janata Party's pre-presidential poll manoeuvres.
The Congress protested vociferously both inside and outside Parliament on Monday against the political developments in Maharashtra as it stalled proceedings and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of "murdering democracy" in the state.
Expressing shock over the "brutal murder" of BJP state general secretary V Ramesh, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Sunday constituted a Special Investigation Division under the Director General of Police (CB-CID) to probe the case.
The searches over suspected tax evasion began in the morning and it covered multiple premises connected to a prominent leader of the main opposition DMK, based in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvannamalai district.
There is no change in the Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to go it alone in the assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, a senior BJP leader said Monday.
The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday lifted the restriction on weekend worship in temples with effect from today and also permitted all shops including restaurants and bakeries to function till 11 pm.
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
In the Tamil Nadu election, to be held next month, the AIMIM will contest three of Tamil Nadu's 234 seats -- Vaniyambadi, Krishnagiri and Sankarapuram.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The incident occurred when BJP members, all set to release the balloons, burst firecrackers while garlanding a farmers wing state level office-bearer, Muthuraman at Padi on Friday.
If Vijaykanth and his party stole the media thunder, which lingered in the viewers' mind even while watching Prime Minister Modi's thunderous campaign speech, the latter suffered also owing to visible 'disconnects', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan on Monday demanded a thorough probe regarding the alleged attack on Bihar migrant workers and bring the culprits to book, and ensure a hospitable atmosphere for the workforce in Tamil Nadu.
Stalin called on Ravi at the Raj Bhavan here and urged him to expeditiously send the Bill to exempt Tamil Nadu from the purview of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for getting Presidential assent, an official release said.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
The deadlock over finalising alliances has had a deleterious effect on the candidates of every party. The delay in alliance conclusion has also sent out confusing signals to the grass-roots who are unsure who will be their party candidate, or which party within an alliance will be allotted a particular constituency, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Some leaders of the non-BJP ruled states also alleged that the exclusion was an "insult" by the Centre.
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.
Stalin claimed that in a few months political change will take place and then the NEET barriers will come crashing down.
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.
'The alliance led by the DMK is starting with 15% votes while the AIADMK is starting from scratch.' 'Minority votes may be crucial'
Terming the attacks on its headquarters in Tamil Nadu allegedly by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam workers as a "Constitutional breakdown," Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Thursday met the President and demanded for the dismissal of the DMK govt.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution urging the Centre to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 to protect and ensure unity and communal harmony and uphold the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution.
Whenever they are announced, the bypolls to 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be a mini referendum on the state government's performance. It will also be a do-or-die battle for the ruling AIADMK, opposition DMK, as well as the rebel AMMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Janata party will release its manifesto on April 14.
Vijayakanth said the decision to snap ties with the AIADMK was taken following a unanimous view reached at a consultative meeting with party's district secretaries in Chennai.
The governor has returned the bill, adopted by the state assembly in September 2021 and the report of a high level committee constituted by the Tamil Nadu government in this connection to the assembly Speaker M Appavu.
The farmer said he was impressed and had benefitted by welfare schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi.
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.
Citing exam season and Tamil New Year festivities, Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India-Marxist units in the state on Wednesday demanded that the Election Commission revise the polling date for the state assembly elections, scheduled for April 13.
Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill-2021 to club seven castes in poll-bound Tamil Nadu under one nomenclature of Devendrakula Vellalars.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "no respect" for the culture, language and people of Tamil Nadu, he alleged.
Tamil Nadu and Kerala are voting in single-phase for 234 and 140 assembly constituencies respectively.
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