If the DMK under Stalin is unable to do well in the Lok Sabha elections, his personal and political standing in the party will be threatened. But if the party does well, Stalin is the next kingmaker to watch out for. T E Narasimhan and Aditi Phadnis report.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking stay on further sale of electoral bonds ahead of assembly elections.
The Election Commission has decided to set up a panel to identify the experiences and shortcomings during the recently-held five assembly polls.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The first bench refused to restrain the media, both electronic and print, from publishing the oral observations of the judges relating the role of EC in holding elections to four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the country during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the high-profile contests in the high-stakes Bengal polls is likely to be a direct fight between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her former confidant and now BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
By-elections to Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the states of Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil and West Bengal passed off peacefully on Saturday amidst tight security.
Though it's been just five years at the helm, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress is fighting severe internal dissidence and would crumble like a pack of cards if it loses, says Devanik Saha.
The Election Commission is confident of holding the five assembly polls due early next year, including in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, on time as the poll panel has gained a lot of experience from the electoral exercise in Bihar, West Bengal and four other assemblies amid the coronavirus pandemic, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra has asserted.
Assembly elections are due in the summer of 2016 in five places: Assam, West Bengal in the east and Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry in the south
However, Karunanidhi said he was not bothered even about his life and that democracy was important for him.
Intellectuals can debate the difference between what was achieved during the Congress regimes and the BJP-led NDA, the PM said.
'Of equal importance was the AIADMK's precarious assembly membership, what with 11 of its MLAs including deputy chief minister OPS facing court cases for disqualification and by-elections due in another 21. To shore up the party's numbers for anticipated eventuality on the 11-MLAs' front, the AIADMK leadership in general and chief minister EPS in particular, were even more focussed on assembly seats than LS seats, just now,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Can Baichung Bhutia's Hamro Sikkim party pose a challenge to Pawan Chamling who has not lost an election in 24 years?
The opposition is likely to put up a joint candidate for the July 18 presidential election despite not having numbers on its side, and consultations in this regard have already begun.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
Analysis of conversations on Facebook regarding the assembly polls shows that BJP featured in 61 per cent of them, while TMC chief Mamata Banerjee was the most discussed leader.
Today, with the Lok Sabha polls only months away, any inter-state dispute over the Cauvery water dispute has the potential to take more political turns than otherwise, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
As the party moves forward into the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it not only needs to strengthen the state units and reach out to the grassroots level, but also forge alliances with like-minded parties.
The notion that the BJP gained its increased tally by wiping out the Left parties and the Congress is completely misleading. Equally misleading is the belief that the TMC held its ground in all its existing seats. A little more than a fifth of the seats Mamata Banerjee's party had won in 2016 was lost to the BJP this time.
'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.'
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met Bharatiya Janata Party general secretaries and discussed organisational matters as also measures to strengthen the party ahead of assembly elections in some key states.
The chief minister may have Prime Minister Modi's backing.
"This election has upheld true democracy shattering to pieces the campaign of lies of DMK. This election has put a permanent full stop to the family rule," she said.
Petrol price on Friday crossed the Rs 100- per-litre mark in Chennai as well as in some places in Punjab and Kerala after fuel prices were hiked yet again. Petrol is priced at over Rs 99 a litre in Delhi and Kolkata -- the only metro cities which haven't seen the Rs 100 mark yet. Petrol price was hiked by 35 paise per litre on Friday but there was no change in diesel rates, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
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.
Tamil Nadu topped the tally of total seizure of cash where a latest Election Commission data said the figure went up to Rs 112.89 crore.
The Jharkhand poll results also show that the caste equations against BJP are consolidating. Cong leaders feel that the BJP is not invincible and can be defeated if like-minded parties get together.
Kumble and his wife Chethana took to Twitter and drive his followers exercise their franchise.
Counting of votes is underway for four Lok Sabha and eight assembly Constituencies, spread across six states and one Union Territory where by-elections were held on Saturday.
A section within the RSS feels Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani should be projected as the BJP's CM candidate in UP, says Rajeev Sharma.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
After some recent events that turned against the party, including the Congress' G-23 Group asking for a revamp in the party, Congress leader and MP Manish Tiwari has been included in the star campaigners list of Congress for Assam and West Bengal Assembly polls.
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.
The two notices, which have listed virtually similar wordings, say that prima facie the manifestos of the two parties 'have not substantially fulfilled the guidelines of the Commission'.
His likable boy-next-door face and casual approach to public speaking have a unique appeal for the younger generation, but it stops there, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
