"I will contest (for the post) If I am alive after one year," he told media persons in Chennai in what is seen as a message to his sons union Minister M K Alagiri and M K Stalin to put an end to the tug of war on the succession issue.
He said that Stalin has come a long way from organising youth under the party in his younger days to moulding himself as a future leader of the DMK.
Security has been beefed up at Karunanidhi's Gopalapuram residence as DMK cadre kept pouring in there.
A day after a senior leader submitted his resignation from the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam demanding that M K Stalin be declared the chief ministerial candidate for the 2016 assembly polls, the M Karunanidhi-led party on Thursday accused him of indiscipline and suspended him from all posts.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
A staunch supporter of slain LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran, he also criticised the former prime minister for sending the Indian Peacekeeping Force to Sri Lanka in the 1980s.
The BJP says an 'assassin' is very different from a terrorist.
The 65-year-old Stalin's elevation comes about three weeks after the death of his father and party president M Karunanidhi.
The truce, even if it is not permanence peace, will come under stress and test during the pending polls to rural local bodies in nine revenue districts and urban polls across the state, including those for 16 municipal corporations, starting with Chennai, the oldest and largest, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
After days of deliberations, a point of conclusion was reached late Saturday night and Congress leader and Tamil Nadu in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao told reporters that the agreement was signed in "a spirit of cooperation" when the country was facing a 'threat' from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A host of political leaders and the cream of Tamil film world were among those who turned up for the wedding reception of Union Minister M K Alagiri's son Durai Dayanidhi on Wednesday at the sprawling Tamukkam grounds in Madurai, which was converted into an excellently decorated wedding hall.
The 'Make Rahul Gandhi All India Congress Committee president again' chorus is growing louder in the Congress with half a dozen state units so far seeking his elevation to the top post, even as uncertainty and suspense persisted over whether he would take on the mantle.
Replying to a question on reports of the BJP demanding 50 seats from the ruling AIADMK, Murugan said a statement on the continuation of the alliance was made by the party's top leaders O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami two days ago.
In her letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi three days ago, Kidwai said she was relinquishing charge as party general secretary and Mahila Congress chief as he felt that Rahul Gandhi should be given the necessary space to bring in younger leaders of his choice
Dear Mr Rajinikanth, please read Mahabharat again, please go through it again properly
The 65-year-old leader's ascent as the DMK chief heralds a new era in the Dravidian party, making him only the second man after his father to be elected as party president.
Though both the Dravidian majors are facing questions on family politics, the ruling party especially finds itself in the dock since its late leader J Jayalalithaa had often used it to target her party's archrival DMK.
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
"Some are creating an impression that Rajinikanth is to launch a party at the instigation of people who intend to decimate the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu. "Let me tell you, this is the land of Periyar (Dravidar Kazhagam founder E V Ramasamy Naicker), Anna (C N Annadurai) and Kalaignar (Karunanidhi)... such efforts in the past have ended in a fiasco," Stalin said.
With assembly elections only two years away, in 2016, the DMK may not have the luxury of time on its side. If the slow pace of reforms that the party has indulged itself in, in the past decade and more is any indicator, the committed 25 percent vote-share would either be frittered away, or lost, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Besides Mukherjee and Deora, the EGoM would have power minister Sushilkumar Shinde, fertiliser minister M K Alagiri, law minister Veerappa Moily and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year old Stalin, for whom this would be the first stint as CM
With the home ministry rejecting the renewal of broadcast licences to Sun group, is it end of the road for Maran brothers? R Ramasubramanian reports from Chennai.
'It is so invigorating, nobody gets tired of it,' says Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilisers Srikant Jena.
The 94-year-old leader was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Kauvery Hospital around 1:30 am. The hospital, in a statement, said he was brought there after his blood pressure had dropped.
The Congress expressed its 'whole-hearted' support to the 'Bharat bandh' called by farmer unions against the new agri-marketing laws and announced that it will hold protests that day at all district and state headquarters in solidarity with the demands of the farmers. TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the party rank and file would actively participate in the bandh to ensure it was a success.
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.
Never before in the history of the Republic has an election in the state mattered so much as it does now, observes Virendra Kapoor.
After an unsavoury courtroom battle, his party won to secure for him the final resting place at the Chennai landmark
M K Stalin might not have his father's charisma, but he has learnt the ropes the long, hard way, says T E Narasimhan
Will the 2016 assembly election be Stalin's to lead the DMK in?
Tamil Nadu, which boasted of as many as nine ministers in the UPA-II government in 2009, did not get any representation in Modi 2.0 government.
"I myself come from a non-Hindi state of Gujarat. If some people want to do politics, it is their choice," Shah told reporters in New Delhi.
The man who led this journey is 50-year-old Kalanithi Maran, chairman and managing director of the Sun Group.
The single-phase polling for 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu on Thursday will test the capabilities of ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, its rival, the Dravidra Munnetra Kazhagam and the Bharatiya Janata Party, who hopes to ride on the Modi wave after drawing a blank in the previous two polls.
Tamil Nadu has time and again proved that it needs a decisive leader even if corrupt, rather than an indecisive leader, however good-hearted, good-natured and honest he may be, writes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In Tamil Nadu politics J Jayalalithaa is the queen of all she surveys today, But there are some ground realities that may still dent her high ambition. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt's fascinating new column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India.
'Narendra Modi might not have made 145 in Maharashtra, but it is definitely true that the Congress, and other dynastic parties, are well and truly stumped.'
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