SC ASKS IF LAW BEING MADE ON AADHAAR-SOCIAL MEDIA LINKAGE

NEWDELHI: TheCentresaidonFriday that it wasn’t opposed to the transfer to the Supreme Court (SC) cases pending in the high courts over the linking of social mediaaccountswiththeAadhaar unique identity number, taking astandthat’satvariancewith the Tamil Nadu government’s.

“We are not opposed to the transfer of the petitions to Supreme Court, but the court must also take into account that high courts have spent substantialtimehearingthecases,”solicitor general of India Tushar Mehta,appearingfortheCentre, said. The Centre spelled out its standduringthehearingofapetition by Facebook Inc. MUMBAI: Asthemassexodusfrom his party continues, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief SharadPawar,78, willembarkon astate-widetourfromSeptember 17, beginning with the first sixday phase in districts of Marathwada and western Maharashtra. With the morale of the party at an all-time low, the NCP chief will take a review of the ground situation and also tap younger leaders to contest the Assembly elections, expected in October, party insiders said.

On Thursday, the party’s former state unit chief Bhaskar Jadhav joinedtheShiv Senaand on Saturday, its sitting MP from Satara,UdayanrajeBhosale,will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Ganesh Naik, NCP’s key leaderfromNaviMumbai, joined the BJP with his son Sanjeev Naik two days ago.

SenachiefUddhavThackeray inducted Jadhav and former police officer Pradeep Sharma into the party at a function in Bandra.JadhavhadquittheSena in September 2004 and later joinedPawar’sNCP.Hisre-entry will strengthen the Sena in Ratnagiri district.

Afterbeingformallyinducted into the Sena, Sharma said that he idolised Sena founder Bal Thackeray since he was a police officerinMumbai.Sharma,who has more than 100 encounters to his name, is likely to contest on a Sena ticket from Nallasopara, partyinsiderssaid.Sharmacould be pitted against Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) chief Hitendra Thakur’ssonKshitij ontheseat.

Meanwhile,theCongressand NCP held one more round of discussions over the sharing of seats, and have decided to share at least 35 seats with the smaller allies and the remaining 250-odd equally between them.

State Congress leaders will meet party’s acting president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Saturdayeveningtofinalisethecandidates.Thecentralscreeningcommittee will meet in Delhi on Saturday, before meeting Gandhi.