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Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the INDIA bloc is keen on finalizing a seat-sharing deal to take on the mighty BJP. After showing a willingness to contest around 70% of the seats across India, the Congress has now taken some steps back to accommodate allies and help build a successful alliance. The grand old party has now claimed that it has finalized a seat-sharing deal in Maharashtra where it's a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi consisting of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down the remission granted by the Gujarat government to 11 convicts, who are out of jail, in the Bilkis Bano case.

All eyes will now be on the Maharashtra government — whether it extends any relief to the 11 convicts.

In its order, the Supreme Court has indicated that the convicts can seek remission, but they need to be in prison for this. "We say so for another reason in the event respondent Nos.3 to 13 (the 11 convicts) are inclined to seek remission in accordance with law, they have to be in prison as they cannot seek remission when on bail or outside the jail," it said.

United Airlines on Tuesday said it has discovered loose bolts and "installation issues" on some of its Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.

These issues were found during inspections carried out after mid-flight fuselage blowout on a similar Alaska Airlines jet on Friday. The inspections are focused on plugs used to seal an area where extra emergency doors are not required on United and Alaska Max 9s. The plug that blew off the Alaska plane during the incident in Oregon was part of this area.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United Airlines stated.

Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders on Monday met to discuss for the first time, seat sharing arrangements for the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, with the former expressing the desire to contest four of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital, and the latter seeking to expand the scope of the discussion to include an alliance in Gujarat, Goa, and Haryana.

The Congress leaders, however, told AAP representatives that their current mandate was limited to discussing seat sharing in Delhi. Specifically, HT learns, the Congress leaders made sure to not even mention Punjab, given the reservations of the party’s local unit against an alliance with the AAP.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday declared jailed MLA Chaitar Vasava as the party’s candidate from the Bharuch seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. He challenged the BJP to “cage a lion” like Vasava and said the Dediapada MLA would contest the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat even in absentia.

Kejriwal said the AAP has “engaged the most expensive and topmost” lawyers of the country to argue the bail pleas of the Gujarat AAP working president and his wife Shakuntala in the Supreme Court in the alleged extortion case.