Welcome to this week’s Powertrip, a political newsletter exclusively curated for TNM and NL subscribers. This week’s edition is by Dhanya Rajendran, Shabbir Ahmed, and Pooja Prasanna.
In this week’s edition, we track the immediate political fallout of the Tamil Nadu elections, beginning with the scaling down of operations at the DMK’s powerful political strategy unit PEN, headed by MK Stalin’s son-in-law Sabareesan. Contracts have ceased, and there is a demand to shut down the unit. (Details in the newsletter)
We then look at how the Congress is preparing not just to support Vijay’s TVK, but also to actively help the party stitch together the numbers needed to form the government. Meanwhile, unrest is brewing within the AIADMK against Edappadi Palaniswami, fuelling speculation over MLAs possibly drifting towards TVK.
In Kerala, the Congress has already entered an intense battle over who the CM will be, with KC Venugopal and VD Satheesan emerging as the two key contenders for the Chief Minister’s post.
And finally, how the results of these elections mark the end of regional parties’ Deve-Gowda-like ambitions and puts the Congress back as the fulcrum of anti-Modi politics.
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