If the Opposition has any chance at the prime minister's job, it can happen only if they all stop dropping names and work at the grassroots-level, state-wise, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of spreading fear, hatred and violence and said the country can not progress under these circumstances as he asked the government to be compassionate in handling farmers' problems to prevent suicides.
State after state has imposed an alcohol ban, and has had to retreat, unable to address the financial and administrative fallout. Are we set for more of this cycle, asks Aditi Phadnis.
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 resolution praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership and accused the opposition of 'opportunism' and a mindset of 'extreme hate'.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of tax cuts on petroleum products, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday said people were aware of the fact behind the issue and pointed out at his government effecting a Rs 3 a litre cut on petrol earlier.
There will be no second term for President Kovind and no elevation for Vice President Naidu.
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In the unlikely event of the BJP-NDA losing all five states going to the polls in February-March, the Presidential electoral college numbers could be significantly altered, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Elections are due in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal that year. Early indications show Bengal holds promise for the BJP, but the party may have to recast itself to win Tamil Nadu.
Higher education policy may be at the core of the Tamil Nadu assembly polls next May, with a potential to break the ties between the ruling AIADMK in the state and the BJP counterpart at the national level, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The very timing of the Phalke Award on Rajini now, days ahead of Tamil Nadu voting in the assembly election, may have taken away the seriousness and credibility attaching to the Centre's decision, making it sound every bit political, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
The setback promises to have far-reaching ramifications within and outside the party as it is likely to fuel voices that have challenged the Gandhi family's leadership and also those who have been a votary of a non-Congress front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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.
The parliament has approved a no-trust vote against Prime Minister Rajapaksa, speaker of parliament Karu Jayasuriya announced in the House.
New Delhi is approaching Gota with an open mind, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
The prime minister should have visited Sri Lanka, armed with a critique of the Rajapakse government based on nuance and fact, says Sreenivasan Jain
Voters in Sri Lanka's Tamil majority Northern Province on Saturday began voting in the first local elections in 25 years to elect a council to govern the former war zone, four years after the military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after decades of bloody civil war.
Sri Lankans on Thursday voted in large numbers in the bitterly contested presidential election in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a record third term against his friend-turned-foe Maithripala Sirisena, with an unusually high voter turnout in Tamil and Muslim areas.
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The prime minister pointed out that such infamous incidents occurred during the Congress rule.
According to sources, Gandhi himself is taking stock of poll preparedness by talking to leaders and listening to their views for poll strategy.
It does not stop here, though. According to field information, state ministers, AIADMK candidates and campaigners are asking BJP cadres accompanying them not to carry party flags at common rallies and also avoid their saffron shawl on those occasions. BJP cadres are also asked to stay out of the common campaign when it enters a minority-dominated areas, especially of Muslims, and re-join later, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Elections 2024 is not as open and shut as has been presumed. There is some life left in it, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi has the chance to break out of India's passive mode and firmly tell Russia that in this day and age, India will not support unilateral invasions, asserts Harishchandra Dighe.
It is increasingly clear that for the BJP to try and establish itself as an electoral force in Tamil Nadu, the party has to come out of the old Brahminical mould, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'In the course of my interactions with him, Modi insisted that he does not believe charisma alone can sustain people's trust for long.' 'That is why Modi consistently refers to Mahatma Gandhi to contextualise his politics.' 'He believes in taking his ideas to the masses and getting their acceptance as an index of approval.'
A revealing excerpt from Ajay Singh's The Architect of the New BJP: How Narendra Modi Transformed the Party.
'He just said that those who cannot control the violence should go. He did not name the BJP.'
The prime minister said the opposition's hatred against him was reaching new levels daily and they have a competition over who abused him the most.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
He said the NDA's work culture was different from that of the previous governments.
'When you're in Tolkien, you have the feeling of being in a world that wasn't invented, but one that was discovered or one that was sort of excavated. It feels like a real place. Like if you had a time machine, you could actually travel to Middle Earth and because of that, you are immersed in it when you go there.'
Kharge launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the Himachal Pradesh poll schedule was announced but not of Gujarat so that the PM can inaugurate many more bridges like the one that collapsed in Gujarat's Morbi.
A dominant force in the country's politics for decades, the grand old party's free fall continued as it lost Punjab to AAP and finished with just two seats out of 403 in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.
Rahul Gandhi was stunned on hearing the senior leader's angry outburst, but soon relented and asked Mukul Wasnik to announce Karthi's name from Sivaganga.
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