HYDERABAD  THURSDAY  AUGUST 18, 2022  `9.00  PAGES 16  LATE CITY EDITION ACTOR JACQUELINE NAMED ACCUSED IN EXTORTION CASE The ED on Wednesday filed a chargesheet naming her an accused in the case involving conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar ‘ACCEPTED GIFTS BOUGHT WITH ILLEGAL MONEY’ CONMAN HELPED HER FAMILY TOO, SAYS ED The Delhi Police arrested Chandrashekhar in August last year for allegedly extorting `215 crore from Aditi Singh and Shivender Singh, former promoters of Ranbaxy. The ED said Chandrashekhar, who had been dating Jacqueline Fernandez, had given her gifts worth `5.7 crore. She was aware that the gifts were bought with the proceeds of the crime, the ED alleged ■ ■ ■ In addition to the gifts, Chandrashekhar gave $1,72,913 to close family members of the actor through a hawala operator Jacqueline is the only person named in the latest chargesheet She has been questioned several times by the ED. In April, the agency provisionally attached her assets worth `7.27 crore August 31 WHEN A SPECIAL COURT WILL TAKE UP THE CHARGESHEET FOR HEARING CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI BSY in, Gadkari out of top party panel Balancing act to soften ex-Karnataka CM ahead of state polls; Yogi surprise omission from parliamentary board EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi IN a major shake-up in its parliamentary board and the Central Election Committee, the BJP on Wednesday dropped stalwarts Nitin Gadkari and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and inducted B S Yediyurappa, Sarbanand Sonowal, Devendra Fadnavis and Bhupendra Yadav, among others. While Fadnavis and Bhupendra Yadav were made members of the CEC, Yediyurappa and Sonowal got into the more important parliamentary board. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adi- tyanath failed to make it to the panel. He was expected to be elevated to the party’s top decision-making body after the BJP returned to power under his leadership in the state. The parliamentary board is the BJP’s apex organisational body, while the CEC is the top election committee which decides candidates for all polls. Yediyurappa’s inclusion was a balancing act, highlighting the party’s efforts to send a message to the powerful Lingayat community ahead of Karnataka polls. When he was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai as chief minister in 2021, Yediy- BS Yediyurappa Nitin Gadkari Shivraj Chouhan urappa did not take the decision well, and had announced his retirement from politics. The party leadership chose Iqbal Singh Lalpura as the first Sikh representative in the parliamentary board. Lalpura, a BJP leader from Punjab, is a former cop and is at present the chairman of the National Commission for Minorities. Gadkari is considered close to the RSS leadership. His axing came as a big surprise to BJP watchers. The removal of Gadkari and Chouhan shows their increasing differences with the top party leadership. The other new parliamentary board members are K Laxman, Sudha Yadav and Satyanarayan Jatiya, three old party faithfuls but political lightweights. Sudha Yadav and Laxman are from the Other Backward Classes while former Union minister Jatia is from the Scheduled EXPRESS READ EWS FLATS GOVT FLIP-FLOP ON ROHINGYA HOUSING IN DELHI OUTSKIRTS E X P R E SS N E WS S E R V I C E @ New Delhi THE Centre on Wednesday did a flip-flop hours after a minister applauded a decision to provide government accommodation to Rohingya refugees in Delhi’s outskirts. It said there was no direction to provide EWS (economically weaker section) flats in Bakkarwala to illegal migrants from Myanmar. The day began with Union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri tweeting, “In a landmark decision all #Rohingya #Refugees will be shifted to EWS flats in Bakkarwala area of Delhi. They will be provided basic amenities, UNHCR IDs & round-the-clock @DelhiPolice protection.” Several individuals and social media users slammed the government ‘support’ to the Rohingya and sought similar relief to Hindu migrants from Pakistan as well. The VHP termed it shocking, with its working president Alok Kumar saying, “Rohingyas are not refugees but infiltrators. That had been the consistent stand of the Union of India including in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court. The proposal to allocate accommodation to Rohingyas is deplorable.” The Aam Aadmi Party, too, joined the attack, alle ging the Centre had hatched a plot to permanently settle Rohingyas. As the outrage grew, the Union home ministry issued a statement saying it has not instructed relocation of the Rohingyas. “The Government of Delhi proposed to shift the Rohingyas to a new location. MHA has directed the Government of Delhi to ensure that the Rohingya illegal foreigners will continue at the present location at Kanchan Kunj, Madanpur Khadar as MHA has already taken up the matter (their) of deportation,” it said. It complained that the Delhi Government had not declared the present location (Madanpur Khadar) of the refugees as a detention centre. About 1,100 Rohingyas have been staying in tents in Madanpur Khadar on which the Delhi government reportedly spends about `7 lakh per month. Following a high-level meeting held in July, it was decided to allot EWS flats to Rohingyas. The Delhi Police were directed to provide security to the premises. A Rohingya refugee settlement in Kalindi Kunj in New Delhi on Wednesday | EXPRESS Not appropriate to regard support to eligible as ‘freebies’: YSRC to SC Vijayawada: The ruling YSRC in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that it would not be appropriate to regard the initiatives of the government in areas such as education, health, woman empowerment, agriculture, housing, poverty upliftment and support to the old and needy, as freebies. The party, however, submitted that stringent action should be taken against parties which introduce programmes to reap political dividends. Rajya Sabha member and the party’s general secretary V Vijayasai Reddy filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking permission to intervene in the PIL opposing the practice of political parties promising freebies | P5 TAKING STOCK Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao reviews the progress of work on the under-construction Secretariat on Wednesday | P4 Rollback remission, Bilkis urges Guj govt D I L I P S I N G H K S H AT R I YA @ Ahmedabad DAYS after 11 convicts walked free following remission of their life sentences in the 2002 Bilkis Bano rape case, the survivor said she fears for her family’s lives and urged the Gujarat government to rollback the pardon. “As 11 men, including those convicted of gangraping me and murdering 14 members of her family walked free... two days ago, on August 15, 2022, , the trauma of the past 20 years washed over me again. When I heard that the 11 convicted men who devastated my family and my life, and took from me my 3-year-old daughter, had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb,” she said in a statement. “How can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice. My sorrow and my wavering faith is not for myself alone but for every woman who is struggling for justice in courts,” she added. “No one enquired about my safety and wellbeing, before taking such a big and unjust decision. I appeal to the Gujarat government, please undo this harm. Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace. Please ensure that my family and I are kept safe,” she urged. Bilkis’s husband Yakub Rasool told this newspaper on the phone, “What happened in 2002 was very scary. But what happens now is scarier. Bilkis is so scared to even take phone calls, since they are out of jail.” HC dismisses TS claim on land worth `2,000cr T G N A I D U @ Hyderabad IN a major setback to the State government, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday dismissed its claim to 26 acres of land worth about `2,000 crore in Khanamet village, Serilingampally mandal of Ranga Reddy district. A bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice S Nanda, rejected the writ appeal filed by the State government laying claim to the prime land at Khanamet. In its judgment, the court stated: “We do not see any basis to disagree with the single judge order.” The single judge’s order barred the then government from evicting the petitioners from the property in question. The bench, hearing two writ petitions filed by the Telangana government claiming ownership of the 26 acres of property in Khanamet, opined: “We do not find any good ground to reverse Castes. Sonowal is a tribal. Laxman is at present the president of the BJP’s OBC Morcha. The new entrants to the CEC include Rajasthan leader Om Mathur and BJP women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan. Srinivasan replaces her predecessor Vijaya Rahatkar as the party’s Mahila Morcha chief as its ex-officio member. Both Yediyurappa and Jatiya are over 75, well over the age bar announced by Modi for holding important posts in the party Fadnavis’ in. duction marks his growing stock in Maharashtra. It’s seen as a reward for bringing down the Uddhav government. such a finding rendered by the single judge.” Senior counsel P Sri Raghuram appeared for petitioners P Govind Reddy, late D Rama Naidu, former MP D Suresh Babu, film actor D Venkatesh and others. He argued against the State’s contention that the persons from whom the petitioners purchased the land were not exservicemen and rather, the land belonged to the government since 1951. Consensus by judges Earlier in 2009 and 2010, two single judges had barred the then government from evicting the petitioners from the land and the Telangana High Court has upheld those verdicts Laxman elevated to BJP’s top decision-making body charge P Muralidhar Rao was the first to hold membership in THE Centre’s focus on Telan- the two bodies from Telangana gana was on display yet again in the past. on Wednesday with BJP’s cen, “This is proof of how the tral leadership elevating MP K BJP central leadership has recLaxman as a member of the ognised an ordinary ‘karyakarparty’s parliamentary board, ta’ from RSS like me to the most the highest policy-making body responsible positions. I will use of the party and also as a mem- my position to ensure that BJP , ber in the party’s central elec- comes to power in Telangana in tion committee. the next Assembly elections,” Even BJP State leaders were said Dr Laxman. taken by surprise at With Laxman and Dr Laxman’s elevafor mer Kar nataka tion in quick succeschief minister BS sion — he was made Yeddyurappa being the national president included in the BJP’s of BJP’s OBC Morcha, To youth willing to top two bodies, it is enter politics, there then nominated to the clear that the party are no shortcuts. Upper House from Ut- You also don’t need central leadership is tar Pradesh, and now concentrating on godfathers to be a member of the highsouther n states. successful in politics. Only with est decision-making Vanathi Srinivasan, sheer dedication bodies in the party . BJP MLA from Coimand hard work, While the major batore South in Tamil policy decisions are great heights could Nadu, who is also the be achieved taken in the parlianational president of mentary board, apthe party’s Mahila Dr K Laxman, BJP MP proval of candidates Morcha has been inproposed by the State cluded in the central units and formulating election committee of campaign strategies the BJP as an ex-officio and appointing inmember. charges during elecThis is another inditions is done by the cation of the central central election leadership’s focus on committee. establishing its BJP’s Madhya feet firmly in Pradesh inthe south. V I V E K B H O O M I @ Hyderabad