The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
More than 5.79 crore voters will seal the fate of 3,740 aspirants including arch rivals Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Dravida Munnetra Kazagham president M Karunanidhi, as the stage is set for polling in 233 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu under tight vigil on Monday.
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) of Parliament has summoned the telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar on Tuesday to estimate the loss suffered by public sector undertakings BSNL and MTNL in the 2G and 3G spectrum allocations.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Amid slogan shouting by MPs from the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and other opposition parties from the Well of the House, Modi began replying to the debate on the motion thanking the President for her address to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the start of the Budget Session, and accused the Congress of adopting only 'tokenism' to solving problems the country faced.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The honourable prime minister virtually handpicked me for the Amritsar East seat.' 'Amit Shahji announced that if I am elected, the whole of Punjab will be drugs free.'
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
Modi's non-reference could also imply that the BJP may be keeping its alliance options open vis--vis the AIADMK. It could also imply that the BJP's national leadership had not given up on the DMK returning to power in the state post-poll, and the Centre having to do business with a new government in Fort St George, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
'If they really wanted to give him competition, the AIADMK should have contested the seat, not its ally the PMK.'
Adani group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group. The group has maintained it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.
V K Sasikala, late J Jayalalithaa's confidante would return to Tamil Nadu on February 7 from Bengaluru and a grand welcome from party cadres awaited her right from the state's border, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary T T V Dinakaran said in Madurai on Wednesday.
In a week from now, December 21, voters in R K Nagar in Chennai will decide who their MLA will be.
The chief minister still has time to repair the damage but he will have to act all-round, both at the government and party levels, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam veteran's criticism of Haasan comes in the backdrop of the actor invoking the legacy of the ruling party's founder and former chief minister, the late M G Ramachandran, and the MNM chief lashing out at government over corruption.
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.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday refused to grant early hearing on the Central Bureau of Investigation's appeal challenging the acquittal of former Union telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case.
Party leaders list three clear positive outcomes -- an activated Congress which has hit the ground running leaving the past inertia behind, an interactive top brass which is directly engaging the people, and a mobilised organisation which was dormant for many years.
But the question before the leadership will be whether to retain the BJP alliance or dump it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
They just wanted their angst noticed, and as a symbol of recognition, Jallikattu, restored without the annual ritual of court cases and adjournments, explains N Sathya Moorthy.
Today, when one Kamalahaasan launches a new political outfit, vowing to cleanse Tamil Nadu polity and political administration of corruption, mal-governance and non-governance, he is pitted not only against Rajini with his commitment to 'spiritual politics', he is also pitted against the real 'Lotus' in Tamil Nadu politics, representing the ruling BJP at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"I am not your leader, I am your tool.. this gathering is full of leaders," he said moments before announcing the party's name that roughly translates to "Centre for People's Justice."
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'When an individual becomes authoritarian, you can overthrow the individual easily. 'When the system becomes authoritarian, whoever challenges the system will be called a criminal or an anti-national.'
'It may take the AIADMK much more convincing than already, not only to try and bring around even the one-time Muslim voters of the party. 'More importantly, the party leadership may find it even more difficult to convince traditional party voters and cadres, who had admired Jaya's nonchalance to the party and leader ruling the Centre,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
His career as a bureaucrat has been somewhat colourless, which suggests his current elevation is simply a matter of being at the right place at the right time.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
Rajinikanth will announce his decision by the end of this month through a video message on his Twitter handle.
She faced intense and protracted struggle to eventually head the AIADMK.
At 70, going by hospital records made public, most age and health-related arguments put out against super-star Rajinikanth's entry into politics, before he withdrew citing a 2016 kidney-transplant, hold good for Sasikala, too, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday claimed that additional "evidence" had emerged about 2G spectrum scam showing alleged roles of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi, his daughter Kanimozhi and a top police officer of Tamil Nadu.
V Narayanasamy was on Monday sworn in as the tenth chief minister of Puducherry.
Jayalalithaa was the third chief minister in Tamil Nadu to die in office, after her mentor M G Ramachandran (1987) and before that his mentor C N Annadurai (1969). The state government should have evolved protocols for the medical care of the incumbent, and institutional memory should have guided the government and officials in the matter, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Tamil Nadu is a state of temples, it's a holy land. People don't seem to realise that.'
M Karunanidhi was a masterful practitioner of modern-day politics, wielding considerable influence beyond his own state, in the corridors of power in New Delhi, for a long time and sewing up alliances with both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'Did you see my pamphlet?' Andimuthu Raja, the 2G scam-tainted DMK MP from Nilgiri, asks Rediff.com's Saisuresh Sivaswamy. 'Two things are very clear. One, that I did not have any disproportionate wealth, as per the CBI's contention before the court. And there has been no loss to the exchequer, which has been admitted by the joint secretary. Under the Prevention of Corruption Act these two things are very important, and that has been ruled out.'
