The DMK and PMK on Friday clinched an alliance for the coming Tamil Nadu assembly polls, under which the ruling party's junior partner has been allotted 31 assembly seats. The deal was finalised at a meeting between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss in Chennai. Karunanidhi, announcing the accord at the end of the nearly 90-minute meeting with his former ally, said the two parties had decided to fight the elections jointly.
Capitalising on the boycott by main opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance on Friday expectedly swept the by-polls to five Tamil Nadu assembly seats, trouncing actor-politician Vijaykant's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam by impressive margins.
Palaniswami is the third AIADMK leader to be sworn-in as the chief minister in the last nine months.
The DMK-Congress potboiler has so many layers to it that it makes Inception look like a linear nursery rhyme.
Riding on an anti-incumbency wave, Jayalalithaa-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam front on Friday stormed to power handing a crushing defeat to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress combine in Tamil Nadu assembly polls.
Voicing confidence that his party will win the Tamil Nadu assembly polls, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi on Wednesday hinted at a possible coalition government, a key issue said to have been raised by long-time ally Congress as a post-poll arrangement.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja's brother has been arrested on charges of 'bribing' voters in Perumbalur district in the run up to the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls, police said on Monday.
Shobha Warrier analyses why Srirangam, with its large chunk of Vaishnavite Brahmin population, makes perfect sense for All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha decision to contest an election from there.
After days of uncertainty and dragging, the seat-sharing issue between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and left parties for the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls was finally sealed on Monday with the Jayalalithaa-led party allotting 22 seats to Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Communist Party of India.
Talks between Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leaders M K Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran late on Monday night appeared to have made no headway in securing a breakthrough in the stalemate on seat-sharing between the two parties for Tamil Nadu assembly polls though DMK put on hold its decision to pull out of the United Progressive Alliance government.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Congress were locked in a battle of attrition, a day after the regional party announced pulling out its ministers from the United Progressive Alliance government with neither party making any moves to break the deadlock in the aftermath of failure of seat-sharing talks for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.
The biggest significance of Friday night's statement from Chief Minister Karunanidhi is that this is the first time in many months that the DMK has spoken openly about the alliance and negotiations in public.
Slamming the Election Commission for its 'hasty' announcement of schedule for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Thursday said the state had not been consulted about the dates and sought to know the rationale behind the poll panel's action. A day after the EC announced the schedule, the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam chief said everybody expected the polls to be held either in the last week of April or in the first week of May.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday said the arrest of former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G Spectrum scam raised more questions than answers and alleged that it was a "purely political" decision keeping in mind Tamil Nadu Assembly polls.
Pattali Makkal Katchi founder-leader Dr S Ramadoss on Monday said that his party has not taken a final decision about joining the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam-Congress combine to fight the Tamil Nadu assembly poll. On Sunday, DMK chief and TN Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had told the media in Delhi that the PMK will fight the state polls with the DMK-Congress alliance. Many other political parties had also approached the PMK to forge a coalition.
As the assembly elections are on the way in Tamil Nadu, the major parties have promised for reduction in the price of goods.
A close analysis of the Tamil Nadu assembly election results shows that there is no marked difference in the voting pattern.
Tired with the numerous allegations of cash-for-votes emerging from Tamil Nadu, the Election Commission has decided to blacklist 25 officials of the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service.The blacklisted officials, who have violated their poll duties earlier, will not be enlisted for the ensuing Tamil Nadu assembly elections.A decision will be taken on these 25 officers by the end of July when the state election commissioner sends a report.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalithaa will be sworn in as the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu on Monday, May 16, at 12 pm
It will be interesting to see who will represent the constituency as its first MLA in the Tamil Nadu assembly.
Dr V Dekal, who heads the department of forensic sciences at the Madras Medical College, said he had put in his papers on March 3, over a fortnight before Batcha's suicide, to contest the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.
Sheela Bhatt analyses the gameplan behind the Congress's decision to play hardball in Tamil Nadu, to the extent that it doesn't care if the DMK walks out of the UPA government at the Centre.
AIADMK MLAs were on Wednesday suspended till Friday by Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker R Avudaiyappan after they were evicted from the House en masse for creating rumpus over remarks made by a ruling DMK member.
The first round of talks were described as "cordial" by Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K V Thangkabalu, who is part of the five-member DMK panel which has Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin among other members.
Bettering the promise of monthly payouts to homemakers by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the DMK, Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam on Friday assured Rs 3,000 "value rights assistance" to them in its manifesto for the April 6 assembly polls, but maintained it was not a dole.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of tax cuts on petroleum products, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday said people were aware of the fact behind the issue and pointed out at his government effecting a Rs 3 a litre cut on petrol earlier.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
A Raja, the former telecom minister who stepped down from his post in the wake of the 2G spectrum scam, does not appear in the list of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leaders who will campaign from 2011 Tamil Nadu assembly elections. This list was finalised on Thursday by DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
More than 700 bull-tamers participated in the events, which were witnessed by thousands of spectators.
Opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members were on Tuesday evicted en masse from the Tamil Nadu assembly after they disrupted the proceedings by raising slogans to demand the passage of a resolution on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue. Speaker R Avudaiyappan ordered the eviction following a request from Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who said raising slogans inside the House was 'uncultured'.
Setting the cat among the pigeons, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi hinted that he was retiring to 'work among the oppressed people' from 2010. The Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are due in 2011.
Weeks ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, V K Sasikala, expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and close aide of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, on Wednesday announced that "she will stay away from politics," but would pray for the "golden rule" of the late party supremo.
Confidence vote stalled after ruckus by opposition.
DMDK leader Vijaykant is observing a one-day token fast at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to express solidarity with the minority Tamil population in Sri Lanka. Addressing his supporters in Tamil, the actor-turned-politician alleged that fishermen from Tamil Nadu were being kidnapped and killed, while they were out fishing on the high seas.Vijaykant, an actor-turned-legislator in the Tamil Nadu assembly, is known as the 'Black MGR' among his fans and followers.
Highlighting its tough stand against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Congress on Friday asserted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly that it won't relent till the Tigers' Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, a proclaimed offender in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case, was arrested, extradited and prosecuted in India.
For quite some time, there was speculation that actor-politician Kamal Haasan-led Makkal Needhi Maiam and the DMK would sign up with the strategist for the 2021 assembly polls.
Ending its decade long stint in the opposition, even relegated to the third spot in the House in 2011, the M K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam made a spirited comeback to the ruling saddle to unseat its rival the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
The setback promises to have far-reaching ramifications within and outside the party as it is likely to fuel voices that have challenged the Gandhi family's leadership and also those who have been a votary of a non-Congress front to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party.
RJD president Lalu Prasad will not attend the celebrations due to ill health.
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