Afternoon Pulse: Maharashtra's court date slips to Thursday as Sena (UBT) loses a voice

Since this morning, Maharashtra has mostly been waiting, and the wait just got longer. The Supreme Court hearing we flagged at dawn will not happen today. The Shivaji Park protest, the FIR against the Thackeray cousins and the drought relief file all stood where they were this morning.

Here is what happened in Delhi. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana deferred the batch of pleas on the Delhi protests against the Chief Election Commissioner, including the contempt case over metro curbs, to Thursday, 15 October, because Justice Mohana was unwell, PTI (via ThePrint) and LiveLaw reported. The opposition's own petition on the voter-roll revision, which names Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule among its 11 petitioners, still had no hearing date. PTI said the registry flagged more than 10 defects in it. These include a request for a clearer copy of Mallikarjun Kharge's ID card, pages that were missing or could not be read, and a court-fee shortfall of a little over Rs 200. The Election Commission had not filed a reply in the reports we checked.

At home, the voter-roll window stays open until 26 October and the final roll is still due on 16 November, IANS reported. IANS added detail on the machinery behind the drive. It said about 1.53 lakh booth-level officers, 7,100 assistant registration officers, 288 electoral registration officers and 36 district election officers are handling claims, after special camps on four weekend days in October. We still found no running count of claims and objections since the last public figure.

The MNS signature drive for CEC Gyanesh Kumar's resignation has spread beyond Dadar. UNI reported that signatures were being collected in several parts of the state on Monday. Punekar News reported a signing table at Pimpri's Ambedkar Chowk led by city president Sachin Chikhale, who warned that the agitation would grow. We found no police response to the MNS claim that the drive was stopped in Chandivali. We also found no summons or arrests in the FIR against 25 people, including Aaditya and Amit Thackeray.

One story we missed this morning matters for the Thackerays' camp. Anand Dubey, a Shiv Sena (UBT) national spokesperson and one of its best-known Hindi-speaking faces, has quit the party, ANI and the Free Press Journal reported. He said he could no longer speak for the party's line and named Hindutva as the reason. He also rejected the opposition's 'vote theft' charge, the very campaign his former party is now leading. Neither report carried a response from Sena (UBT), and neither said where Dubey is headed next.

Away from the courts, a ThePrint ground report from Marathwada shows what the drought means in the villages. Seventy-four of the region's 76 talukas are drought-hit, and monsoon rain fell about 39% short. Well owners in one Jalna village are selling water at Rs 100 a bucket. The state declared drought in 265 talukas in September. A central team led by Joint Secretary Muktanand Agrawal met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday after touring seven districts, PTI reported. As of this afternoon there is still no date for the inter-ministerial meeting that Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised.

The MPSC file was also quiet. We found no new public deadline for the Justice Dilip Bhosale panel that two outlets could confirm, and no date for its first sitting.