LIVE: TN CM Vijay meets AIADMK rebels; Shanmugam says ‘ready to back TVK’

TVK legislator JCD Prabhakar on Tuesday (May 12) was unanimously elected as Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker.

Prabhakar's nomination was proposed by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, and as his was the only nomination received for the Speaker's post, he was unanimously elected unopposed, Pro-Tem Speaker M V Karuppaiah said when the Assembly was convened for the day to elect the Speaker.

Following the election, Karuppaiah announced that his role as Pro-Tem Speaker had ended. He invited the Leader of the House K A Sengottaiyan, and the Leader of the Opposition, Udhayanidhi Stalin, to escort the newly elected Speaker to his chair, as per the tradition followed in the House. And from today, Prabhakar would conduct the proceedings in the House, he added.

Immediately after assuming his chair, Prabhakar conducted the election for the deputy speaker. He informed that TVK MLA from Thuraiyur, M Ravisankar, was the lone member to file his nomination for the deputy speaker's post, and his nomination was proposed by Sengottaiyan. In the absence of any contest, Ravishankar has been elected unopposed, he said.

The rift within the AIADMK took a new turn on Tuesday with a faction deciding to support the TVK government. CV Shanmugam said, “(AIADMK chief) Edappadi Palaniswami presented some proposals to us. So far, we have been doing politics by opposing the DMK. But Palaniswami said we should support the same DMK that we have been opposing all along, and help him become the chief minister with DMK’s support. We told him this was wrong. Palaniswami did not accept our view. Therefore, we are walking out. Palaniswami should convene the General Council meeting, where we can discuss the reasons for our defeat. Change is essential.”

However, SP Velumani made it clear that “journalists should not spread the news that AIADMK has split. We will not be the cause for the breakup of AIADMK. Edappadi Palaniswami should cooperate to help AIADMK recover from its continuous electoral defeats”.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay has ordered the closure of 717 government-run TASMAC liquor retail outlets located within a 500-meter radius of places of worship, educational institutions, and bus stations, within two weeks.

A week since the Congress-led UDF stormed to power in Kerala, the impasse over who would lead the state as chief minister continues.

The Congress high command, unanimously authorised by its newly-elected legislature party to select the CM, remains unable to break the deadlock and has now summoned former Kerala unit chiefs to Delhi for discussions on Tuesday (May 12).

The party’s Kerala in-charge Deepa Dasmunsi has summoned several former state unit chiefs — including K Muraleedharan, K Sudhakaran, Mullappally Ramachandran, and VM Sudheeran — for further discussions with party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul has also sought the views of former chief minister AK Antony, who is learnt to have stressed the need for the “broadest possible consensus” before a CM is picked. Antony reportedly cautioned Rahul that imposing the high command’s choice without considering cadre sentiment would create problems both for the party and its new government in Kerala.

Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are also expected to consult Congress allies in Kerala.

Read full report here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Guwahati on Monday night, ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the third BJP-led NDA government in Assam.

Several Union ministers, chief ministers and their deputies of NDA-ruled states, top industrialists, Satradhikars (heads of Vaishnavite monasteries) and other dignitaries, besides BJP workers and booth committee presidents, will be attending the programme, Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president Nitin Nabin are also scheduled to reach during the night.

Among those who have arrived for the oath-taking are union ministers Rajnath Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Lalan Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Chirag Paswan.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, her Goa counterpart Pramod Sawant, Rajasthan’s Bhajan Lal Sharma, Bihar’s Samrat Choudhury, Chhattisgarh’s Vishnu Dev Sai, Uttarakhand’s Pushkar Singh Dhami, Maharashtra’s Devendra Fadnavis, Odisha’s Mohan Charan Maji and Madhya Pradesh’s Mohan Yadav.

Among chief ministers of other North East states who have reached for the oath taking are Tripura’s Manik Saha, Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio, Mizoram’s Lalduhoma, Manipur’s Y Khemchand Singh, Sikkim’s Prem Singh Tamang and Arunachal Pradesh’s Pema Khandu.

The deputy chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, among others, have also reached Guwahati.

The oath-taking ceremony will be held at the Khanapara Veterinary College field with elaborate arrangements for accommodating several thousands of people, with separate dais also being erected for different set of dignitaries.

The Congress has slammed the appointments of erstwhile chief election officer Manoj Agarwal as the new West Bengal chief secretary and Subrata Gupta as the chief advisor to Chief Minister Suvendu Banerjee, claiming the appointments reflected the “brazen collusion and connivance” between the Election Commission and the BJP.

The opposition party also said that there is not even an attempt to keep the collusion discrete or concealed.

Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, said the BJP-led West Bengal government has appointed the erstwhile chief election officer Manoj Agarwal, a 1990-batch IAS officer responsible for overseeing the recent Assembly elections in the state, as the new chief secretary.

Similarly, Subrata Gupta, also a 1990-batch IAS officer who oversaw the SIR deletions in Bengal as the special roll observer, has been appointed the chief advisor to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, Ramesh pointed out.

“These appointments reflect the brazen collusion and connivance between the ECI and the BJP. There is no longer even an attempt to keep the collusion discrete or concealed,” Ramesh said.

The appointments are a testimony that the ECI was not impartial and acted exclusively to benefit the BJP, he alleged.

“An entire state went to the election with 27 lakh people being debarred from voting. This was tactfully executed by the ECI to create an electoral advantage for the BJP,” Ramesh said.

Agarwal, a West Bengal cadre officer, helmed the EC-mandated Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal in the run-up to the Assembly polls, in which around 91 lakh voters were removed from the voter list.

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday directed officials to take steps to ensure that his government introduces the 'Annapurna Bhandar' scheme and provides free travel for women in state-run buses from next month, sources at the state secretariat said.

'Annapurna Bhandar' was a key promise mentioned in the BJP's poll manifesto to provide women beneficiaries with a financial assistance of Rs 3,000 per month. Free bus travel for women on all state-run transport vehicles was also among the pledges of the saffron party.

However, the eligibility criteria and implementation guidelines of the schemes are yet to be finalised.

The chief minister also directed officials to take steps to roll out the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme, which was not implemented by the previous TMC government, from June.

Officials said it remains unclear whether all residents would be covered or if the benefits would be linked to family income and other criteria.

According to sources, Adhikari made it clear during the meetings that no existing social welfare scheme in the state would be discontinued.

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday described his first day in office at Nabanna as “eventful”, asserting that his government had begun turning electoral promises into action through a series of key decisions taken at the inaugural cabinet meeting.

In a post on X after chairing his first cabinet meeting, Adhikari said the new BJP government had taken six “landmark decisions” aimed at ushering in “Asol Poribortan” (real change) in the state.

“Today, we transformed promises into action,” he said, while listing decisions ranging from the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat scheme in West Bengal to facilitating border fencing work by handing over land to the Border Security Force (BSF).

The chief minister said the state would finally implement the Centre’s flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat, allowing residents to avail of its benefits.

Recalling the first day of his tenure, Adhikari said the cabinet had approved increasing the upper age limit for state government job aspirants by five years to compensate youths who had “lost precious time during the previous regime”.

In the post, the CM also said that his government has formally implemented the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in the state and cleared the way for the Census process to ensure “proper representation”.

The BJP leader said steps had also been initiated for the welfare of 321 families whose members “lost their loved ones while standing for democracy in West Bengal”.

He added that the government had decided to remove obstacles in implementing central schemes such as PM Vishwakarma, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and PM Ujjwala.

“The message is clear — this is a government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’, not for the party,” Adhikari said in the post, in an apparent swipe at the previous regime.