Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam deputy general secretary A Raja stoked a controversy over his Shudra remark and drew the Bharatiya Janata Party's ire with the saffron party accusing him of spewing hatred against a community to appease others.
The ruling All India Anna DMK bagged 37 out of the 39 seats in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party winning one seat and its alliance partner the Pattali Makkal Katchi winning one.
Expressing gratitude to Bharatiya Janata Party for supporting his Presidential bid, P A Sangma on Thursday appealed to National Democratic Alliance allies Janata Dal-United and Shiv Sena, which are opposed to his candidature, as well as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to back him in the July 19 poll.
"Objectively, it is only the Congress that has a footprint, shall we say, in eight to 12 states. So to have healthy democracy in which one party does not steamroll the Opposition, the kind that India experienced from the late 1970s till 2014, to revive that, to restore it, which I believe would be very good for all of us, it would depend a lot on the Congress becoming more competitive," he claimed.
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.
The closed-door discussions between Kishor and Pawar at the latter's residence lasted for about one-and-a-half hours, sources said.
While many thought that the BJP will go in for a pre-poll alliance, it now appears that the party has decided to fight the elections on its own in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to meet Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo to work out a compromise to resolve the recurring issue of the arrest of Indian fishermen by the island nation's navy.
Was C M Ibrahim's Rediff Interview the last straw for Deve Gowda?
The 67-year-old gave the example of two neighbouring states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, to buttress his point on why seat-sharing pattern of the INDIA bloc will vary from state to state.
Former Lok Sabha speaker and Nationalist Congress Party leader P A Sangma met Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Lal Krishna Advani in New Delhi on Friday to seek support for his candidature for the coveted post of President of India.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was criticised by two opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh -- Telugu Desam and Praja Rajyam -- which said he was "adding fuel to fire" over the contentious Telangana issue.
The opposition alliance that will take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and an 11-member committee will be set up for coordination, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced after a meeting of the parties in Bengaluru.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has said his party will focus on improving its electoral prospects in the southern states and the north-east in the next general elections, as part of the National Demcoratic Alliance's efforts to win more seats and wrest power from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj, who was in charge of the party's campaign in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, on Tuesday claimed that her party would make its presence felt in south India. She was addressing a press conference after campaigning in the poll-bound states."Our party is winning in at least four constituencies in Kerala. I personally feel that we will do better than that," she told newspersons at the party headquarters on Tuesday.
With billionaire Gautam Adani charged in the United States with alleged bribery and fraud, the Congress on Thursday said it 'vindicates' its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the various 'scams' involving his conglomerate.
Tamil Nadu electricity minister was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), official sources said, making him the first minister in the M K Stalin-led government to face such an action from a central agency.
Non-BJP chief ministers holding the home portfolios are Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu).
Taking a swipe at DMK president's statement that the party would take steps to implement prohibition if voted to power in the next elections, AIADMK said it was done with an eye on polls.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
Will Jayalalithaa fill the vacuum created after Nitish Kumar's exit from BJP-led NDA? Why the UPA government's Cabinet reshuffle ended with a whimper... Why the food security bill was stalled at the last moment... All this and more in this week's Dilli Gupshup.
The investigation into the blast at Bangalore before the Karnataka assembly elections appears to have hit a roadblock. Police had initially suspected that terror outfit Al-Ummah was behind the attack.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Tamil Nadu unit on Thursday said Ram Setu should not be "affected at any cost" and demanded that the multi-million crore rupees Sethusamudram project be implemented without demolishing the structure.
The credibility of the examination system has also come under question, they said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is set to host a meeting of its constituents on Tuesday in what is being seen as a show of strength by the ruling alliance amid a get-together of opposition parties in Bengaluru to forge unity, as the two sides step up their campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Temples across Uttar Pradesh were packed with devotees on Sunday for Ram Navami, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading prayers at the Gorakhnath Temple. Heavy crowds were witnessed at temples in Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi, where security was heightened. In Gorakhpur, Adityanath performed the traditional kanya pujan ritual, while in Varanasi, a 51-foot statue of Lord Ram has become a major attraction. The festival was celebrated with enthusiastic fervor across the state.
Cases have been registered in Coimbatore against former Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament Ram Vilas Vedanti for his alleged directive against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi for his anti-Ram remarks, police said.
'Politically, Tamil Nadu has faced several setbacks in the past -- the water sharing issue with Karnataka, on Katchatheevu, on the Tamil fishermen issue...' 'In all these issues, the central and state governments acted in an inefficient and incompetent manner.' 'That must have stayed in the minds of the people.'
The parleys, according to a BJP senior, were cordial and the deal is likely to be clinched soon.
A party delegation, including BJP state unit president L Ganesan and party national secretary S Thirunavukkarasar, MP, submitted a memorandum to the governor at Raj Bhavan in Chennai.
The Tamil Nadu government saw an increase in foreign direct investment by 41.5 per cent during the April-December period.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday filed a defamation case against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy in a Chennai court over his remarks claiming that the boats of Indian fishermen apprehended by Sri Lanka belong to Sasikala, a close aide of the AIADMK chief.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then finance minister, when the 2G Spectrum allocation was made, P Chidambaram, give "proper reply" to former Telecom Minister A Raja's claim that the issue of sale of equity by spectrum licencees was discussed with them.
Amid a row over Cauvery water sharing, Karnataka will file a review petition on Tuesday before Cauvery River Authority after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it clear that only the authority can revisit the decision about the state releasing water to Tamil Nadu.
Taking strong exception to Central Board of Secondary Education's Sanskrit Week celebrations in schools under its ambit next month, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Saturday said it would be appropriate to have organised a 'Classical Language Week' in each state based on its linguistic heritage.
As investigations in the case related to the pipe bomb that was planted on LK Adavani's yatra route progress, the Special Investigation Team said that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader was not a target. The police now suspect that the incident was carried out either by the People's Democratic Party leader Abdul Madani's faction or its rival group.
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