Despite the BJP's displeasure over Sasikala's elevation as AIADMK general secretary, the Dravidian party has sent a message to the Modi government that it will not be cowed down, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Should Sasikala seek to follow Jayalalithaa's footsteps in the matter, and if at all she is not disinterested in keeping the twin posts together, the by-election to Jayalalithaa's constituency R K Nagar could be the starting point, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

'Having learnt her lesson in popular democracy, Jaya would become more populist than the DMK and more so than the imagery that mentor MGR had created in the Tamil voter's mind, both as an individual and as an elected ruler.'

'The man stood alone, fought alone.' 'Some of those battles appeared Quixotic at times.' 'Ultimately, it was he who won though it may have seemed as if a Sancho Panza was fighting a relentless battle against the windmill.' N Sathiya Moorthy salutes the fearless editor who has passed into the ages.

'Going by his political conduct over the past 15 years since first becoming chief minister, he has made enough enemies among equals as friends and followers.' 'They could gang up and that could mean a lot for AIADMK politics to handle,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.

AIADMK's Jayalalithaa won three assembly by-elections from her hospital bed. However, the DMK heir's decision to disempower second-line satraps, who were running personal fiefdoms in their districts, and his fresh approach, could prove beneficial in the next polls, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.

The demonetisation move will force the Modi government to battle with a policy dichotomy, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Though the 2019 alliance talks, if any, are a long way off, CM Jaya's current state of health and her long hospitalisation maybe a facilitating factor for the AIADMK to consider any BJP initiative favourably at the time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

More than the traditional Dravidian political rivalry that's now on display, it's boiling down to father-son one-upmanship within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

There is no alternative for the party and the state to wait for CM Jaya to return home as CM Jaya, and make her call, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Verifiable 'distress-sharing' of available water may still be the way out of the Cauvery water row, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Superstar Rajinikanth needs a box-office hit after two successive flops in Kochchadaiyaan and Lingaa, both 2014. Yet, Kabali is being projected as if the fans need the film, and the Tamil film industry needs it even more, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

The incidence of more crimes across Tamil Nadu is threatening to make law and order an inevitable poll issue in the state-wide local bodies elections due only months from now, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

As the Opposition leader in the state assembly, M K Stalin has to fend off the ruling AIADMK on the one hand and prevent the re-emergence of a non-Dravidian Opposition on the other -- but his immediate challenge comes from within, in the form of his wheelchair-bound octogenarian party leader and father M Karunanidhi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

In writing to the government for a change in the law, the Election Commission has actually acknowledged the future possibility of countermanding polls to curb the use of money power, says N Sathiyamoorthy.

The assembly polls in the state have shown that the GenNext voters want change -- not necessarily of leaderships but of their behaviour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Barring one of the earliest surveys of the kind in the country, in 1989, none has proved right in Tamil Nadu's case, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

The last time Tamil Nadu seriously voted on pre-poll promises was in faraway 1967.