NEWS

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), led by MK Stalin, is set to emerge as the winner in the urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu. The elections were held after over a decade.

Eligible voters exercised their franchise in 21 corporations, 138 municipalities, 490 town panchayats and 649 local urban bodies. A total of 57,778 candidates were in the fray for 12,838 posts.

Taking to Twitter, chief minister Stalin said the DMK's performance in the local body polls vindicated the Dravidian model of good governance of his administration.

"As the DMK-led UPA is winning with a huge margin, I thank the people. This is a certificate given to the last nine months of our governance. This is a reorganisation for the Dravidian model," Stalin said.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Friday instead of Wednesday a batch of pleas, which alleged use of Israeli spyware for surveillance of certain people in India, after taking note of the submissions of the solicitor general for the Centre that he would be busy arguing a money laundering case in another court.

As per the cause list uploaded on the website of the apex court, a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana was scheduled to hear on Wednesday the pleas on the Pegasus issue for the first time after October 27 last year when it had ordered setting up of a three-member panel of cyber experts to probe the spying allegations.

The bench, also comprising justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli, was urged by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, that the proposed hearing of the pleas on Wednesday be deferred to Friday (February 25) as he would be arguing before another bench.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the ongoing legal wrangle between former Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh, and the Maharashtra government, is becoming a “messy state of affairs” and also a “very unfortunate situation”.

Expressing concern, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul said,

“We have had occasion to say earlier that it is a messy state of affairs. Very unfortunate situation… having the propensity of shaking the confidence of people in the police system and the elected system. Process of law must carry on…”

The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday said they will not join an Opposition front without the Congress, a day after Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao called on his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray and NCP chief Sharad Pawar in separate meetings in Mumbai.

Sunday’s meetings were seen as Rao’s efforts to forge an Opposition front of like-minded parties to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections. While KCR, as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief is popularly known as, called on the chiefs of Shiv Sena and NCP on Thackeray’s invitation, he did not meet anyone from the Congress.