The Sasikala gameplan for guilty verdict: Quickly nominate a new CM for TN Edit

AIADMK's strategy is to dissuade the governor from inviting Panneerselvam to take a floor test

Tamil Nadu Elections : The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a trial court order finding All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary VK Sasikala guilty in an illegal wealth case that dates back two decades. The verdict, which will mean Sasikala going back to jail and being debarred from public office for nearly a decade, upends political calculations at a time when she is caught in a tussle with interim chief minister O Panneerselvam for control of the party and the government.

A bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amatava Roy upheld the trial court judgment in which Sasikala and the late Jayalalithaa were found guilty of amassing over Rs 63 crores in assets disproportionate to their known sources of income during the latter’s tenure as chief minister between 1991 and 1996. The proceedings against Jayalalithaa would be abated because of her death on December 5.

In 2014, a trial court in Bengaluru – where the proceedings were moved on the Supreme Court’s orders – had found Jayalalithaa and Sasikala guilty along with the latter’s relatives Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran, and sentenced them to four years imprisonment. The conviction had forced Jayalalithaa to step down as chief minister under rules disqualifying convicted politicians from holding office or contesting elections. But the following year, the Karnataka High Court had acquitted all of them. The Karnataka government, which is the prosecutor in the case, had appealed in the Supreme Court, which will decide Sasikala’s fate at 10.30 am on Tuesday.

Officials of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam told Scroll.in that strategies “for all possible scenarios” had been put in place before the verdict. Sasikala spent the night at the Golden Bay Resorts in Kancheepuram, where 128 MLAs owing allegiance to her have been staying for the past five days. Read more

Uttarakhand elections: Rahul Gandhi, Harish Rawat perform Ganga aarti

Rahul Gandhi also held a 75-km long road show and a Nukkad Sabha in the city

Uttarakhand Elections 2017 : With just two days left for the Uttarakhand assembly polls and the state Congress striving hard to woo voters in the last leg of the election campaign, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Harish Rawat took part in Ganga Aarti at Haridwar's Har Ki Pauri late night on Sunday.

Rahul also held a 75-km long road show and a Nukkad Sabha in the city.

A day before, tearing into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'real' motives behind demonetisation, Rahul Gandhi branded the move as a tool to waive off loans worth crores taken by some 50 rich families, instead of an initiative against black money as the Prime Minister has projected.

"He claimed that black money is in Swiss bank accounts, and that he would bring the money back from Swiss banks. The Swiss government has given him the names of Swiss account holders. I want to ask Prime Minister Modi, why have you not revealed those names in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha? Why have you kept those thieves away from us?" Gandhi said while addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur.

Rahul and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also jointly announced the Samajwadi Party (SP) - Congress' Common Minimum Programme.

The programme, including ten points of commitment to the people of Uttar Pradesh, enlists the promises such as free smart phones to youth, employment to 20 lakh youth, loan waiver to farmers, reduction of power tariff, pension schemes for poor, better infrastructure, cycle to girls who fall under merit list, 33 percent reservation to women in government jobs, free residence to Dalits and backward class poor.

Watch : Rahul Gandhi performs aarti at Harki Pauri

Win at all costs? PM Modi's reforms meet realpolitik in Uttar Pradesh polls

Maurya, BJP UP President, said his party is moving towards cleaner and transparent politics

Elections 2017 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while.

"At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside.

Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away.

Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office.

His bosses are not concerned.

An official at the prime minister's office referred questions about Maurya and his criminal cases to the BJP, where an aide to party president and Modi confidant Amit Shah said there was no problem.

The charges are related to Maurya protesting on behalf of Hindu causes, said the aide, and anyone who does so "is not a criminal in the party's eyes."

"Slowly," Maurya told Reuters, "the BJP will be moving towards a direction where it will only have politicians who are absolutely clean and have no cases of corruption against them." (more)

Note ban splits BJP's trader vote bank in western UP

In the cities of western Uttar Pradesh demonetisation has been a killer

UP Elections 2017 : Manoj Kucchal, a hardware vendor in Bijnor’s commercial hub, Sadar Bazar, looked harassed as he summoned his chartered accountant for the morning session he has been holding since the taxman knocked on his doors.

The taxman started sending him alerts after vetting Kucchal’s bank accounts to check how much cash was put in it after November 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised high-value currency notes.

“The I-T (income tax) department has served 10 messages on my mobile in the past 10 days. If I do not answer these within 10 days, I will have to pay a penalty of Rs 10,000 per notice. The thing that amuses me is the number of times I have used the figure 10,” said Kucchal, who heads the Bijnor district traders’ association.

At Saharanpur, 110 km away, Vivek Minocha, who helms the city’s traders’ forum, is feeling harassed. “The I-T guys are demanding proof for every rupee we put in (to a bank account). The PM himself said once not to probe deposits of up to Rs 2.5 lakh by housewives. The women in my joint family have made deposits. It seems the I-T sleuths will not heed his advice. What do I do?” asked Minocha.

In the cities of western Uttar Pradesh, whose economies are sustained mostly by wholesale and retail trading, demonetisation has been a killer. In the absence of large industries at these places, trading in food, agro products, industrial goods and crafts is a major economic contributor and a sizeable employer. (more)