Sources said that Congress leaders, including Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, AK Antony, Ambika Soni and Randeep Surjewala, are also taking part in the meeting at Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence.
As the counting process into election to five assemblies reached its final phases, Senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared that the people have given their verdict towards both 'stability' and 'change.'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) to conduct by September 15 the local body polls in nine new districts carved out of four existing ones.
The Election Commission on Thursday banned Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader A Raja from campaigning for 48 hours after finding him guilty of violating the model code of conduct by making derogatory remarks against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
The Congress has virtually blamed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for the drubbing in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections. "The results in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry were affected by the 2G scam and these states were lost to other parties," the editorial in the latest issue of 'Congress Sandesh' said. Congress was part of the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu. The issue has come at a time when DMK chief M Karunanidhi is holding an emergency meeting.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party pulling out all the stops to oust Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from government in West Bengal and to retain power in Assam, these two states have been the focus of Modi's campaign.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The EC has asked the Chief Electoral Officer of the state to instruct the Returning Officers of Bhuvanagiri and Pudukottai to file cases before respective Magistrates against the AIADMK leader, EC sources said.
The AIADMK bagged 134 seats as counting of votes was taken up for 232 of the 234 assembly constituencies. Polling in two constituencies has been postponed to May 23.
Tamil Nadu Cabinet has decided to recommend late All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa for India's highest civilian honour, the 'Bharat Ratna'.
There are two such seats in Tamil Nadu and one each in West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh.
The plea had also sought to bar the BJP and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.
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.
A day after the Congress in Tamil Nadu was decimated in the assembly polls, TN Congress Committee President K V Thangkabalu announced his resignation from the post, accepting moral responsibility for the defeat.
The Tamil Nadu Toddy Movement had met both Chief Minister Palaniswami and Stalin to seek their intervention in lifting the ban on toddy-tapping and had submitted petitions, but there it remained. So the matter is being taken to the people's court.
The Bharat Mata controversy in Kerala shows how political and symbolic fights between the state and the Centre have taken attention away from education, throwing the state's oldest university into confusion and disorder, observes Shyam G Menon.
Hours before he was to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for a third time, a 19-year old youth belonging to a village near Salem died by suicide on Sunday, fearing the outcome of the test he was to take.
The stalemate in seat sharing talks between Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Congress for the April 13 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu persisted with All India Congress Commitee president Sonia Gandhi's special emissary Ghulam Nabi Azad leaving for New Delhi on Thursday after his inconclusive talks with DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
Do you want a washing machine or a fan? This question may well become the crucial factor that determines which party -- the ruling DMK or the Opposition AIADMK -- wins the Tamil Nadu assembly election.
Only one in four workers in Karnataka receive a salary, the lowest among the four industrialised states of India, a Business Standard analysis of the latest annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data shows. While 31.6 per cent workers in Gujarat receive regular wages (or salaries), followed by Tamil Nadu (30.3 per cent) and Maharashtra (29.4 per cent), only 25.7 per cent workers in Karnataka receive the same. The figure stands at 21.5 per cent at the national level, according to the 2021-22 PLFS data.
'In the last three to four months the BJP vote share in Tamil Nadu, which was 2.86% in 2016, has gone up to about 5%-6%.' 'The AIADMK will lose the minority votes and others who don't like the BJP and Modi.' 'The AIADMK decided to take the risk to get the 5%-6% votes that the BJP will bring in.'
As political rivals clamour to retain their pan-Tamil credentials, the BJP may use the 'nationalist' card to even the odds in its favour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'As an actor he was surrounded in stardom, but as a politician he is humble'
The Supreme Court quashed on Wednesday a criminal proceeding against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, initiated for filing four nomination papers in the 2001 Assembly polls, and asked the Madras high court to re-examine its order to lodge the case against her.
The BJP and its allies now rule over 70 per cent of the country's population, marking an unprecedented saffron footprint.
The continuing exodus has left the party short of leaders, especially those credited with "excellent" organisational skills. The local strongmen, who switched sides, are reaping rich rewards in DMK.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
The Tamil Nadu voter may not be in the mood to test new talent, not when the state and the people are going through unprecedented and unanticipated crises, of which coronavirus is only the first. All of it boils down to an election between the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition DMK next year, with small-timers, had-been parties and promised parties left on the sidelines, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The elections in the five states, the first major exercise since the UPA coalition government came to power 20 months back, will start on April 3 and end on May 8.
In his first visit to Chennai since becoming prime minister, Narendra Modi was given a rapturous welcome and hosted for lunch by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
'Your strike rate is very important when it comes to seat-sharing.'
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
Eighty-six-year-old Karunanidhi, accompanied by his sons Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin and Union Minister M K Alagiri, filed his papers before the election officer Jayaraj.
DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K V Thangkabalu signed the agreement, hammered out after hard bargaining by both sides for about a fortnight
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa on Wednesday rubbished reports that her party would have an alliance with the Congress for the coming assembly polls in Tamil Nadu.Jayalalithaa told reporters that her offer of support to the United Progressive Alliance government during the 2G spectrum scam crisis was not for alliance with the Congress.Asked why she had started criticising the Centre of late, she said, "The AIADMK has always voiced its criticism."
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'.
Elections will also be held in 35 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
According to sources, the filters were applied on Saturday night soon after the poll schedule was announced.
Subramanian Swamy stole the BJP thunder in Tamil Nadu by meeting DMDK's Vijaykanth in Chennai, and his efforts seem to have paid off, at least in the interim, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
