Maharashtra Congress chief Manikrao Thakre is trying hard to get a second term ahead of the local body elections, including the key Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

In a swift political move to put the brakes on the AIADMK-camp’s momentum, the ruling DMK on Friday signed an electoral pact with the PMK for the Assembly polls by allotting 31 seats to the party and assuring its support for Dr Anbumani Ramadoss’ re-entry into the Rajya Sabha in 2013.

The BJP central election committee that met in New Delhi on Friday finalised Ms Hema Malini’s candidature for the byelection to the Rajya Sabha, due next month, committee secretary and Bangalore South MP Ananth Kumar said. Ms Malini will have a tenure of one year. The election was necessitated after the death of JD(S) Rajya Sabha member M. Rajashekhar Murthy.

Expressing his “deep regret” to Congress president Sonia Gandhi over an allegation by a BJP task force report that she and her late husband Rajiv had accounts in Swiss banks, saffron party veteran L.K. Advani said he was happy that she had denied the charges. Mr Advani, in a letter to Mrs Gandhi, said had she denied earlier “the task force would have taken her denial into account”.

Violence erupted in a village at Pandav Nagar in east Delhi on Friday afternoon following arguments between two communities over burial of a body in the burial ground located in the village. Several vehicles, including that of policemen, were torched and damaged in the clash where the police was forced to lob tear gas shells and firing in the air to disperse the mob. A huge number of policemen have been deployed at the village to maintain a calm.

In a major setback to the city government, a division bench comprising Chief Justice of the Delhi high court Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan on Friday set aside the government’s May 2010 communication which directed the DERC to put on hold its decision on power tariff for 2010-11, saying the act was “unjustified”.

Violence erupted following an accident, in which a six-year-old child was killed and other two were injured, at Rohini in outer Delhi on Friday morning, as a mob torched offending vehicle and also shouted slogans against the police. The police had to use mild force to disperse the crowd, which resorted to stone pelting in which some policemen also reportedly sustained injuries.

Delhi BJP chief Vijendra Gupta on Friday shot off a letter to Union home minister P. Chidambaram asking for an enquiry into allegations of involvement of chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s kin in a `28 crore scam. Mr Gupta alleged that “daughter-in-law of Ms Dikshit’s sister had been favoured in awarding contract of `28.5 crores for repair of government schools in Delhi disregarding rules”.

A 40-year-old woman was allegedly gangraped by three men in a secluded area of Mehrauli in south Delhi on Thursday night. All the three accused, including an out-of-job blueline bus driver, have been arrested.

It seems that the Goa police is worried that the upcoming Rohan Sippy film, Dum Maro Dum, which portrays Goa’s criminal underbelly, might be too close to the truth.