Twin blasts rock pak before elections A day before Pakistan’s general elections, twin blasts shook up Balochistan on Wednesday leaving 30 people dead and 40 others injured. So far, no one has claimed responsibility. Separatist groups operating in Balochistan are the prime suspects for the blasts. Balochistan’s home minister Jan Achakzai said elections would be held as per schedule | P13 | ap/pti chennai l thursday l february 08, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 20 l late city EDITION 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■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Congress outdated party with divisive narratives, says Modi Local Delhi court concurs with ED, summons Kejri RA JESH KU MAR THA KU R @ New Delhi Finds prima facie offence of intentionally disobeying the probe agency’s summonses J AIS O N W I L S O N @ New Delhi Arvind Kejriwal Jal Board scam The ED said incriminating documents, valuables of `1.97 crore and foreign currency worth `4 lakh were seized during raids on Delhi CM’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and others in the Jal Board scam | P10 No bail to Sanjay The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused bail to arrested AAP leader Sanjay Singh in the Delhi excise policy scam. “No ground for grant of bail to the accused at this stage is made out,” the judge said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday appeared to lose some wriggle room as a local court summoned him to appear before it on February 17 in the excise policy scam case. It issued the order after taking cognisance of a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) complaining that Kejriwal had failed to comply with its summons in the case for the fifth consecutive time. “Prima facie offence under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is made out and there are sufficient grounds for proceeding under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against accused Mr. Arvind Kejriwal,” Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra said in her order. As per Section 174, a person who intentionally disobeys the directions issued by the probe agency shall be prosecuted and punished with imprisonment extending up to one month or with a fine or both. The ED had issued summons to Kejriwal on October 30, November 2, December 18, December 22, and January 3 demanding his attendance “to give evidence in connection with the investigation or proceedings under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)” on the alleged excise policy scam. Objecting to the summons as “unsustainable in law”, Kejriwal had argued that the ED had failed to disclose the capacity in which he was being called — as a witness or a suspect. But under PMLA, the investigating officer is not required to disclose the capacity under which a person is summoned at the stage of probe, the agency said in its plea. It would be premature to label the summoned person either as a witness or an accused, it added. The agency told the court that the investigation carried out so far had revealed that the 2021-22 excise policy was formulated “as a part of a criminal conspiracy by the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party with deliberate loopholes to generate and channelize illegal funds” for themselves as well as the party . 12 former lawmakers from AIADMK join BJP T M u r u g a n a n d h a m @ Chennai In a significant development, 12 former AIADMK MLAs, including former minister Gomathi Srinivasan, and four other former lawmakers from DMDK, DMK, and Congress joined the BJP in the presence of Union Ministers Rajeev Chandrasekhar and L Murugan, and party state president K Annamalai in New Delhi on Wednesday This comes months af. ter the AIADMK broke its alliance with the national party . The 16 new entrants include former DMDK MLA K Thamizh Azhagan and former Congress MLA R Thangaraju. Ex-AIADMK MLAs S E Venkatachalam and Muthukrishnan who recently joined the BJP during Annamalai’s En Mann En Makkal yatra were also present on the occasion. Marking this as a beginning, BJP state vice president KP Ramalingam, said, “After the 2024 polls, one-third of the present DMK MLAs and half of the AIADMK MLAs will join BJP.” P7 Fund right Congress leaders from Karnataka led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah staging a protest against the Centre in Delhi on Wednesday over the alleged injustice to the state in the devolution of taxes | Parveen Negi point counterpoint Cong alleged that injustice has been meted out to Karnataka in tax devolution and grants-in-aid Nirmala Sitharaman accused K’taka of having separatist mindset and spreading false narrative It demanded that the Centre undo the losses amounting to `1.87 lakh crore allegedly incurred by the state under the 15th Finance Commission “I want to assure the House (LS) that whatever has been recommended by the Finance Commission, I followed to the last word,” she said 6 workers killed, 6 injured in Ooty building collapse E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Coimbatore Six women engaged in the unauthorised construction of a retaining wall died as a portion of a nearby building collapsed on them at Gandhi Nagar near Lovedale in Udhagamandalam on Wednesday Six other workers were rescued . with injuries and admitted at the government hospital in the hill town. Officials said the property owner had not obtained permission to build the wall and was arrested along with the contractor and two supervisors. The deceased were identified as S Radha (38), S Shakeela (30), B Bakiyalakshmi (40), S Sangeetha (38), V Uma (35), and S Muthulakshmi (40) from Mel Gandhi Na g ar and Mel Thalayattimund. The accident spot at Lovedale in According to poUdhagamandalam | Express lice, 17 workers and an earthmover were at the site for the construction of a retaining wall for a bungalow belonging to one Jacob Brijo. Sources said, the workers were drinking tea at 11.30 am under a cliff when a portion of a public toilet on the cliff 20 feet above collapsed on them after a landslip and 12 got trapped in the rubble. Upon alert, fire and rescue personnel and police rushed to the spot and started the rescue operation.  P7 UCC bill passed, awaits President’s assent n a r e n d r a s e t h i @ Dehradun The Uttarakhand Assembly on Wednesday passed the Uniform Civil Code bill through a voice vote after two days of deliberations. The bill now awaits President Droupadi Murmu’s assent for its enactment. The bill is expected to be the template for adoption by other BJP-ruled states. The assembly rejected the opposition’s demand to send the bill to a select committee of the House for vetting. In his reply to the debate, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the legislation comprises 392 sections, with Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami before the special Assembly session on Wednesday | PTI major emphasis on succession rights. It establishes a uniform legal framework applicable to all citizens, encompassing crucial aspects such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, and even live-in relationships, irrespective of religious affiliation, he added. The Congress chose not to protest in the House during Dhami’s speech. “The bill’s paramount goal is to protect women’s rights,” Dhami said. The law applies to the whole of Uttarakhand and to people from the state living outside. To bar the practice of halala, the bill specifies “the right to marry the divorced spouse without any condition, such as marrying a third person before such remarriage”. The bill makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children in terms of property rights. Egalitarian goals: CM Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami said the UCC bill is not an ordinary law but one that will create equal laws for men and women across all faiths and will help create a nonpartisan, nondiscriminatory society PICKING up from where he left off in his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in Lok Sabha on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday trained his guns on the Congress again, accusing it of working against the interests of the marginalised sections of society and trying to create a wedge between north and south India. Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks in the Rajya Sabha, Modi said the Congress had an ‘anti-reservation’ policy during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time to shut out people from the SC, ST and OBC sections. Modi claimed Nehru was against reservation and had it not been for Babasaheb Ambedkar, the underprivileged sections would not have had any quota. Nehru, Modi said, was of the opinion that the affirmative action to uplift the marginalised communities in the The Congress’s thought process has become outdated and it is now outsourcing all its work. We are not happy to see such levels of decline and depletion of a party that ruled India for centuries. You have our full sympathies — Narendra Modi, Prime Minister country would promote nonmeritorious people and bring inefficiency into the system. “Of late, I remember Nehru ji more often than not. He once wrote a letter to the CMs in which he had stated he was against reservation. He had reasoned it would promote inefficiency amongst the people of eligible sections,” he said. In an apparent reference to Karnataka deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar’s brother and Congress MP D K Suresh’s recent comment that South India should become a separate country, Modi said the grand old party was trying to divide the country for political gains. Modi said the Congress has become such an ‘outdated’ party that it can only think in terms of how to generate new narratives to divide the country. He said there is no doubt the BJP-led alliance will get its third consecutive mandate. Modi said in stark difference to the Congress’ stand against the SC/STs, the BJP-led government has always accorded top priority to the welfare of marginalised communities. Meanwhile, the Budget session of Parliament has been extended by one day till February 10 amid reports that the government will table a white paper on economy The session, . which began on January 31, was to end on February 9.