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The Jharkhand High Court on Friday rejected the non-maintainability plea filed in two PILs concerning Chief Minister Hemant Soren — the mining lease of 2022 and the alleged money laundering through shell companies of 2021 — and will hear the arguments on merits on June 10.

The state had filed a plea against the maintainability of the shell companies PIL on the basis of credibility of the petitioner and on incomplete information, while the CM had challenged it and mining lease issue on similar grounds.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wound up his two-day visit to Delhi on Friday, after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and water resources minister Gajendra Singh Sekhawat, essentially on state-related issues.

While Reddy is learnt to have taken up mostly matters of pending funds from the Centre, allocated for the state, during his meetings with PM and other ministers, politically the meeting is also significant in view of the upcoming Presidential elections that kick in later this month.

By winning the bye-election to the Thrikkakara Assembly constituency in Ernakulam district, Uma Thomas has become the Congress party's lone woman legislator in the current Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Uma won the bypoll by defeating the CPI(M)'s candidate Dr Jo Joseph by over 25,000 votes, which is the highest-ever victory margin since the formation of the Thrikkakara seat in 2011. Her late husband, senior Congress leader P T Thomas, who had represented the constituency since 2016, had won it with a margin of 14,300 votes in the 2021 Assembly polls.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has won the Champawat bypoll by more than 54,000 votes. Congress even lost its deposit on the seat for the first time ever. 

Dhami had to get elected to continue as chief minister as he had lost from Khatima constituency.

"My heart is very emotional with the love and blessings showered by you through votes in Champawat by-election, I am speechless," the chief minister tweeted following his victory.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, who started his political innings with Indira Gandhi, has refused to work in the number two position in the Congress, as per sources. In the upcoming Rajya Sabha election, Azad wasn`t offered a ticket. However, before declaring the candidate for Rajya Sabha, Sonia Gandhi met Azad and spoke to him expressing Congress` plan for him. According to sources, in his conversation with Sonia Gandhi, they did not talk about the Rajya Sabha election but asked Azad whether he would be comfortable working in the number two position in the organization.