Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam president M K Stalin on Friday launched his 30-day pre-election campaign in poll-bound Tamil Nadu from Tiruvannamalai near Chennai and vowed to deliver a pro-people government with focus on development if his party was voted to power in the coming assembly elections, likely to be held in April-May.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
The DMK and its allies submitted a list of pending assembly bills with the Raj Bhavan.
Tandon said, after the review meeting at Madurai and Chennai on Tuesday, they would decide on the Tamil Nadu election date.
'As an actor he was surrounded in stardom, but as a politician he is humble'
Everyone on election duty for the upcoming polls for five assemblies will be vaccinated against COVID-19 before polling day, the Election Commission said on Friday.
If Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai bought it in 2015, did he get prior approval from the Union home ministry, and did he include it in his annual wealth returns, sections of the media want to know. N Sathiya Moorthy on the curious case of the 'Rafale' watch.
According to sources, the filters were applied on Saturday night soon after the poll schedule was announced.
A year later, land for the landless scheme is changing the face of rural Tamil Nadu
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.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi, his son M K Stalin. and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam chief Vijayakanth spent far less than the limit set by the Election Commission for poll-related expenses during the April 13 assembly elections.
Haasan, addressing office bearers in Chennai, said he has been invited by Rahul Gandhi to participate in the Yatra.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin on Sunday hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for attacking his party with the 2G spectrum scam allegation and dynasty politics barb, saying it was an amusing and conjuring trick ahead of the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
What he has said is shocking and shameful, former Union minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said, noting that the son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has repeated his remarks.
A time has thus come when state encouragement for rural students led to empowerment of the socio-economically marginalised sections of the population. It included women. Today, with greater exposure and consequent enlightenment, it has gone beyond 'empowerment' to become 'entitlement', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'With passage of time, Kamal did move away from the humdrum of commercial cinema, using it only as a peg to launch a new concept or new technology, as no other actor/film-maker has done in Indian cinema.' N Sathiya Moorthy assesses the career and politics of movie legend Kamal Haasan on his 70th brthday.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed to hear next week the EC's plea after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted a large number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines (VVPATs) are still being preserved and need to be released.
In private, questions are being raised about the wisdom of a 'dual-SIM' leadership during the long run-up to the 2026 assembly polls where 'family rule' could become an election issue, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former Union minister K V Thangkabalu, a senior Congress leader from Tamil Nadu, has decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections.
It is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here's the full phase-wise list of polling dates in all states and Union Territories.
'The DMK may get a little more than 50% of the minority vote.' 'The AIADMK always gets over 10% of the minority vote.'
There are two such seats in Tamil Nadu and one each in West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Thursday allotted six constituencies to ally Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi for the April 6 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
Kamal Haasan said that Mahendran the biggest example for the fact that democracy sometimes fails and accused that he had lied to take the faces of the people who gave him the identity.
Elections will also be held in 35 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
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.
'Election funding needs a little more transparency.'
The Commission, under Justice (retd) Ritu Raj Awasthi, would recommend an amendment to the Constitution to add the "new chapter or part" on simultaneous elections, the sources said.
Hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi assembly polls victory as 'historic', Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched a stinging attack on the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, saying the country needs a serious political transformation and not politics of 'dhoort-ta (deceit) and moorkhta (foolishness)'.
Shrug off the yoke of the imperialism of Delhi. That is why the DMK manifesto offers what it offers: The promise that Tamil Nadu will, one day, become an independent republic, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has bagged a mayor's post and is leading in all 10 corporations including Chennai as counting of votes, polled during the two-phased Tamil Nadu civic polls on October 17 and 19, was taken up on Friday.
The exit poll results were released at the end of the polling in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, marking the closure of voting in four states and Puducherry.
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dealing a blow to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which was banking on its support to ensure the victory of Kanimozhi in Rajya Sabha polls, the Pattali Makkal Katchi on Friday announced it would boycott the June 27 biennial elections to the Upper House from Tamil Nadu.
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.
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.
