In his first visit to Chennai since becoming prime minister, Narendra Modi was given a rapturous welcome and hosted for lunch by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
Prison authorities had formally released her on January 27 after she completed the four-year jail term in a Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case.
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.
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.
The BJP game-plan: Take the top slot, or a close second, either for the 'Lotus' or the larger NDA, if it can and push the AIADMK to the third place, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a relief to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed criminal proceedings in three defamation cases recently filed by the Tamil Nadu government against him for allegedly making certain comments against Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in his tweets.
A bulletin from the hospital on Sunday night said it has taken expert opinion from a UK-based doctor who examined her and concurred with the present line of management.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday convened a meeting of her cabinet, the first after she returned to the top post following her acquittal in a wealth case in May this year.
Stalin, 68, was contesting as the chief ministerial candidate for the first time during these polls. He was elected unopposed as the DMK chief in August 2018, after the death of his father, a post that Karunanidhi held for 49 years. That didn't come as a surprise to anyone, as during his lifetime, Karunanidhi, on multiple occasions made his preference for his successor abundantly clear and systematically groomed him for the job.
Jayalalithaa was admitted to the Apollo hospital in Chennai due to fever.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam would decide on accommodating V K Sasikala, confidante of late chief minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa, in the ruling party-led alliance for the April 6 assembly polls.
Mehta told the bench that Balaji is an influential minister and the high court has allowed his transfer to a private hospital which could hamper investigation.
Karnataka High Court has set aside the conviction of Jayalalithaa.
She unfurled the AIADMK flag at the T Nagar memorial of party founder and late Chief Minister M G Ramachandran in Chennai and a plaque unveiled on the occasion addressed her as party 'general secretary,' which was strongly opposed by the main opposition party.
Legendary Tamil actress Manorama died at a private hospital in Chennai following a heart attack on Saturday night, family sources said. She was 78. She is survived by her son Boopathi.
Here is the glimpse of the political turn of events in the state
Expelled AIADMK leader V K Sasikala on Monday returned to Tamil Nadu to a grand reception, days after completing her four-year jail term in Bengaluru in a corruption case, amid indications of a confrontation with the ruling party which she once controlled.
The infighting in the AIADMK has made it weak on par with the DMK and other parties, says R Rajagopalan.
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.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who worked with the veteran director, expressed her grief over his death.
Even as the actor-turned-politician said that it was just 'a courtesy call', speculation about a future alliance between them has been doing the rounds in the national capital, says R Rajagopalan.
The ruling DMK has already announced it will file a review petition against the November 8 five-judge Supreme Court bench upholding the 10 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections.
'Nobody is telling you not to speak or learn your mother tongue. But making other languages an emotional issue is wrong.'
The bonhomie between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once again in evidence on Tuesday, but the question remains if it will translate into supporting the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. Senior journalist R Rajagopalan reports.
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The streets of Chennai were gripped with tension and panic as news of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's conviction in the 18-year-old disproportionate assets case spread.
The Supreme Court on Monday held that Tamil Nadu government has no right to appoint advocate Bhawani Singh as special public prosecutor to appear in Karnataka High Court for J Jayalalithaa's disproportionate assets case.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Tamil Nadu is a paradox. We have more places of Hindu worship per square kilometres than any other place in the world. 'We break more coconuts for religious reasons everyday than any other place in the world.' 'At the same time, we also have a very strong Periyar-infused movement of rationalism.'
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Vani Jayaram's husband predeceased her and she had no children, the singer's domestic help said.
The BJP has to endorse chief minister K Palaniswami's candidature for the CM's post for the polls and agree to its other terms -- like non-participation in government -- and if not, should rethink of its 2021 electoral options, the AIADMK indicated at its meet.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In the last three to four months the BJP vote share in Tamil Nadu, which was 2.86% in 2016, has gone up to about 5%-6%.' 'The AIADMK will lose the minority votes and others who don't like the BJP and Modi.' 'The AIADMK decided to take the risk to get the 5%-6% votes that the BJP will bring in.'
The announcement was made by AIADMK coordinator and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal, party election in-charge for Tamil Nadu, who described it as a "mega alliance".
Ramachandran, an OPS loyalist who took part in the meeting, said the former chief minister would soon meet VK Sasikala, the confidante of former party supremo J Jayalalithaa.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was on Saturday convicted and sentenced to four years jail in an 18-year-old corruption case in a judgment that will unseat her from the post, disqualified her immediately as an MLA and can impact the Assembly elections due in 18 months.
The police on Saturday cane-charged All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam activists who were trying to proceed towards the special court in Bangalore which is set to pronounce verdict in the disproportionate wealth case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
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