Opinion polls have predicted that M Karunanidhi’s DMK will not win in this year’s general elections, half the seats it had won in 2009. His son MK Alagiri reckons that is a generous assessment.

“It will be big if the DMK wins one or two seats,” Mr. Alagiri told. The party had won 18 last times.

Mr. Karunanidhi expelled Mr. Alagiri as follow-up action after suspending him for indiscipline in January and excluding him from his party’s list of candidates for the national elections a few weeks ago.

Mr. Alagiri, 63, the sitting MP from Madurai in south Tamil Nadu, says he will not contest the elections this time. But he plans to move court challenging his expulsion from the DMK.

“No one can say DMK doesn’t belong to me. Doesn’t mean we would go out. DMK headquarters was built using my hard work too,” he had said yesterday. Today, he said, “I will raise questions about the protection of DMK’s property.”

He also said, “I don’t care whether Stalin becomes DMK president or not.”

Mr. Alagiri and his younger brother MK Stalin had for years been engaged in a tussle over who would inherit their father’s political mantle. The older son turned into a professional renegade, transacting in a protracted and clanging campaign against his younger brother after the latter was chosen by their father as his successor.

Mr. Karunanidhi, 89, said yesterday that Mr. Alagiri was expelled because despite his suspension, he had not abstained from public criticism of the party in recent months.

Without naming his sibling, Mr. Alagiri had professed recently that his father was being influenced and misled by “traitors.”

His meeting leaders of the BJP and its allies in Tamil Nadu also reportedly irked his father; the fraternising suggested that Mr. Alagiri and his supporters were not above working against the DMK’s candidates despite their demurrals.

The contest between Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal in Uttar Pradesh’s holy town of Varanasi may become a triangular one with Digvijaya Singh emerging as the possible Congress candidate.

Congress sources confirmed to that Mr. Singh is a front-runner among its choices for the Varanasi battle in next month’s national election, but no decision has been taken yet.

The Congress veteran had said on Monday that he was ready to contest in Varanasi.

“I am willing to contest from Varanasi, but the party has to first give me a ticket,” Mr. Singh told reporters on Monday.

The Congress has released six lists of candidates without mentioning Varanasi, betraying its dilemma over the most high profile poll battle of 2014.

Amid the buzz surrounding Digvijaya Singh, Mr. Kejriwal, who joined the Varanasi poll battle on Tuesday, told, “Let Digvijaya Singh come here if he is ready for the fight.”

Mr. Singh is seen as a candidate who can put up a credible fight against the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, in what many assume is a symbolic battle.

He has been among the Congress’ main Modi-baiters, and has more than once called Sushma Swaraj a better BJP candidate for prime minister.

The 67-year-old has not contested an election since 2003, when he banished himself from active politics after losing massively to the BJP in Madhya Pradesh after a decade in power.

He remained one of the party’s key decision-makers, however, and took charge of many states, including Uttar Pradesh. He is also seen as one of Rahul Gandhi’s advisers.

Mr. Singh’s last date with UP, as general secretary in charge of the state, was a disaster. On his watch, the Congress finished fourth in the 2012 state election despite an aggressive campaign by Mr. Gandhi.

Congress workers in Varanasi are also rooting for a local candidate, Ajay Rai, who has a strong following among upper caste voters. Mr. Rai had finished third in the last election, when he was a Samajwadi Party candidate.

The Congress had won Varanasi in 2004, but lost in 2009 to BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi.

A senior police official in Aligarh faces an inquiry after he was found allegedly playing video game on his mobile phone during a meeting called by the police department to review poll preparations.

IG Agra Zone Ashutosh Pandey had called a meeting Monday to discuss apparatus put in place for the ensuing elections. The matter came to light yesterday when clipping of the incident was picked up by some news channels from social media websites showing SP Crime Shakiluzzaman busy on his smart phone while the IG was directing top police officials to ensure “no breach of law and electoral code of conduct by political parties and government machinery”.

Agra Zone consists of some sensitive constituencies including Agra, Aligarh, Mainpuri and Etah. The IG said a probe has been ordered into the alleged breach of protocol to be conducted by the SP Etah, who has been asked to submit his report “within two days”.

A Delhi court on Wednesday sent Indian Mujahideen commander Tehseen Akhtar in police remand till April 02.

Akhtar was produced here before a judge, who handed his custody to police.

Akhtar, the outlawed Indian Mujahideen’s current chief of Indian operations who is an expert in bomb-making, was arrested on Tuesday morning.

According to police sources, the Special Cell of Delhi Police told the court that they need to conduct a sustained custodial interrogation of the accused to unearth the entire terror conspiracy of the banned outfit.

Police also told the court that Akhtar was required to be confronted with one of his top associate Zia-ur-Rehman alias Waqas, a Pakistani national who was arrested on March 22, and others who were also apprehended by them.

According to Delhi Police Special Commissioner SN Srivastava, 23-year-old Akhtar was formally arrested from near Kakarvitta on the Nepal border while he was entering India. He was coming from Kathmandu.

Akhtar, once a close aide and a protégé of arrested IM’s co-founder Ahmad Siddibappa Zarar alias Yasin Bhatkal, was wanted for a series of terrorist strikes in various states, including July 7, 2013 Bodh Gaya blasts and October 27, 2013 blasts in Patna.

Police officials have described the arrest as a major breakthrough in the war against the shadowy group.

Police sources earlier told that Akhtar, a resident of Samastipur in Bihar, was part of Indian Mujahideen’s plan to create mayhem during the staggered Lok Sabha polls starting April 7.

Investigators said Akhtar, the tech-savvy terrorist, was the prime motivator tasked with developing new modules for the outfit and had also become the vital link between the IM and other radical extremist groups emerging from the banned SIMI.

Akhtar was in constant touch with Pakistani national Waqas, who was arrested on Friday from Rajasthan also by the Delhi Police.

Akhtar was reportedly involved in bomb attacks in several places since 2010, the year he reportedly joined IM. The strikes include a blast at Varanasi’s Sheetla Ghat during the evening ‘aarti’, the 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai and the twin bombings in Hyderabad in 2013.
Srivastava told a news agency that Akhtar was the one who received Pakistani national Waqas at the Kathmandu airport in September 2010 and brought him to Delhi to carry out the Jama Masjid bomb attack.

Police sources believe Akhtar was being controlled by India Mujahideen’s absconding leader Riyaz Bhatkal, who is involved in several terror attacks in India.

Interrogation of Waqas revealed that Akhtar stayed with him at Munnar in Kerala from December 2013 till mid-January.

Srivastava said Akhtar’s next plan was to change his hideout from Kathmandu to another neighbouring country for which he entered Indian Territory.

“IM’s bosses had assured him to provide shelter for the time being. But, he was unlucky. As soon as he entered Kakarvitta region, he was arrested,” Srivastava said.

Akhtar was later brought to Delhi by a special plane.