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.
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.
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.
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.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
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.
BJP workers depend on Annamalai's popularity to emerge victorious. He has has made 100 promises to be fulfilled in 500 days and assurances include cleaning up rivers, an international airport and food vans named after former Chief Minister K Kamaraj.
'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.
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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 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.
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.
'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.'
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.
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".
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.
'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.'
'It stands to reason that if a CM is hospitalised for long durations, and is perceived to be not fully functional, that it is the governor's Constitutional duty to ascertain by diligent efforts and arrive at a dispassionate conclusion about the CM being physically fit and mentally alert to discharge his/her Constitutional obligations,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
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.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo J Jayalalithaa on Thursday expelled party leader and former Rajya Sabha MP K Malaichamy, who had recently said that Narendra Modi was her "good friend".
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's celebrations on amma's return are peppered with possibilities, probabilities and problems of one kind or the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy
By itself the event may not amount to much, but what it indicates is a changing, assertive, public doesn't want to be taken for a ride anymore.
A day after Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee indicated that she was open to working with Jayalalithaa, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief on Friday telephoned her and was stated to have discussed the upcoming general elections.
Celebrities and politicians made a beeline for polling stations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as both the states go to the polls on Monday.
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.
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 the video, the former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo is seen holding a glass and drinking from it, while reportedly watching TV.
In private, questions are being raised about the wisdom of a 'dual-SIM' leadership during the long run-up to the 2026 assembly polls where 'family rule' could become an election issue, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
A Madras high court judge indicated that he may order exhumation of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's body
O Paneerselvam did not even sit in Jayalalithaa's office chamber and left her seat vacant in the assembly. This time Amma is not coming back and he has a large number of challenges awaiting him.
An inquiry commission, set up by the Tamil Nadu government to probe former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death, will look into the circumstances leading to her hospitalisation last year and subsequent treatment, the government has said.
Supporters of the bull taming sport Jalikattu on Tuesday staged protests in Tamil Nadu after SC stayed the Centre's notification lifting the ban on it.
While our politicians make observations in the passing, without thinking twice about what they are saying, we leave it to YOU to set the record straight!
Interlinking of rivers, retrieval of Katchatheevu island and inclusion of fishermen in the Scheduled Tribes list are also listed in the memorandum.
Shrug off the yoke of the imperialism of Delhi. That is why the DMK manifesto offers what it offers: The promise that Tamil Nadu will, one day, become an independent republic, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Vani Jayaram's husband predeceased her and she had no children, the singer's domestic help said.
The ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Tuesday said that party supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is a "qualified" leader to lead the country after the next Lok Sabha polls and vowed to work towards this goal by securing all 40 seats in the state.
The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday decided to release all seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, including A G Perarivalan and Nalini.
The 12-MPs delegation, led by Rajya Sabha member V Maitreyan, submitted a memorandum in this regard to the President at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In their memorandum, they sought steps for instituting a probe which can be a judicial inquiry or a CBI probe. It can be decided by the President, Maitreyan said after meeting Mukherjee.
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