Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any 'transferrable vote-bank' even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Even though we are very religious and God fearing, we do not subscribe to the kind of Hindutva they practise, a very hierarchical, Brahmanical, Hindutva.'
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.
'It is not a merger. It is a commercial agreement reached for self-interest,' he said.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
'The capacity of the M A Chidambaram stadium is 36,000 spectators.' 'We are hoping to get permission for seating 20-30 per cent of this capacity.'
Without strategising together, Jayalalithaa's successor, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and M Karunanidhi's son-cum-successor, M K Stalin, have used tough-talking on seat-sharing with allies, to replace charisma that they purportedly lacked, during the run-up to the assembly polls scheduled for April 6, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"The result of the RK Nagar bypoll is an outcome of the tacit understanding between DMK working president M K Stalin and Dinakaran," Panneerselvam and Palaniswami said in a joint statement on Sunday night.
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.
By getting the Tamil Nadu assembly to act on his very imaginative public declaration to keep petro-chemical industries out of the Cauvery delta, which has traditionally been a DMK stronghold, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has not only set the ball rolling for the assembly elections due a year later but also sent out a strong message to the BJP government at the Centre, which took a unilateral decision to exempt petro-complexes from environmental clearance, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
State Finance Minister D Jayakumar said such "politics of opportunism" will not succeed.
Southern Railway however clarified that the issue was the result of a particular user selecting Hindi as the preferred language while registering in the IRCTC website. 'Language is an option in e-ticketing,' a Southern Railway release said.
They were speaking at a function to mark the release of 'Defying the Paradigm,' a coffee table book on Srinivasan's 50-year journey with India Cements.
The OPS-led faction said the rival camp headed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami was 'in a state of confusion'..
What transpired between O Panneerselvam and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi? R Rajagopalan reveals.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that the vow taken by AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala has been fulfilled.
E Madusudanan, who was earlier removed as presidium chairman by Sasikala, said she had 'violated' her promise to the late Jayalalithaa that she will not enter politic.
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.
Bala was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by Tiruneveli District Collector Sandeep Nanduri, who was also caricatured in the cartoon along with the city police chief, police said.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu had begun seeing Governor Ravi's decisions and actions as a part of the state BJP's non-stop criticism of its government and directed from Delhi, a view strengthened by the governor's decision to return the NEET exemption bill, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde considered the suggestion put forward by the Tamil Nadu government that it was willing to put on hold the local body polls in the nine districts for complying with legal formalities such as a fresh delimitation exercise and for deciding the issue of reservation for women and SC/ST candidates.
The Tamil Nadu government has said it was largely dependent on ground water to meet requirements till the onset of north east monsoon in October.
'DMK is taking a wrong image of BJP to the people.'
The actor also said matters relating to alliance and who will be the chief minister in such a case will be decided during the polls.
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 special package assistance would be used to augment irrigation structures in drought-prone areas to address the agrarian distress and drinking water crisis.
'If the EPS government falls, Sasikala will return. If EPS wins, he will become an indispensable leader and Sasikala will not be able to return.' T E Narasimhan reports.
Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit has given his assent to a Bill envisaging 7.5 per cent reservation to government school students who have cleared the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in admission to medical courses.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
The Bengal outcome can have a marginal impact on national politics. Whereas elections in UP next year might still change the course ahead of the parliamentary poll in 2024, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Utter confusion prevails in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
Unlike the regimes of Jayalalitha, Palaniswami and Karunanidhi, ministers are actually getting to make decisions on their own, with the unmentioned rider that they would be held responsible and accountable, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
DMK candidate Kathir Anand defeated All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam nominee AC Shanmugham in the bypoll by a narrow margin of 8,141 votes.
Tamil Nadu's unending legislative fight for exemption from NEET has now flagged the question if it's time to review the Supreme Court's famous verdict in the 'Mandal case', fixing 50-per cent upper-limit for all reservations, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Shah, 55, stated on Twitter that he has tested positive for the infection and is getting admitted to a hospital on the advice of doctors.
The govt decided to recommend to the governor, the release of Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan, Jayakumar, Ravichandran, Robert Payas and Nalini, serving life imprisonment.
K Pazhani of Kadukkalur village served the army for 22 long years and was due to retire in a year.
She suffered serious head injuries and died while being taken to a hospital.
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
He demanded an order for CM, seeking a vote of confidence.
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