KOCHI l friday l February 09, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l LATE city EDITION Imran’s independents pose tough challenge to Sharif Early trends suggest independents supported by Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf were posing a tough challenge to PML-N candidates in Punjab four policemen killed at a polling booth PPP candidates doing well in Sindh The election began at 8 am and closed at 5 pm. People in queues were allowed to cast their ballot even after voting closed. Counting is on and the full results are expected by Friday. Four policemen were killed at a polling station leading to delay in the voting process. Polling was postponed in one seat after a candidate was killed in a gun attack ■ ■ Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shehbaz were leading in their respective seats from Lahore. In Sindh, the Pakistan Peoples Party candidates were leading in most seats Internet was suspended ahead of polling. Amnesty International called it a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression | P11 133 seats needed for a simple majority to form the next government 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  LDF govt stages protest in Delhi against Centre’s ‘neglect’  Historic battle to save spirit of federalism: Pinarayi  Stir turns into show of strength of INDIA bloc india NOT A ‘Union over States’, asserts Pinarayi P r e e t h a N a i r @New Delhi Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury leading a march to Jantar Mantar as part of the LDF government’s protest against the BJP-led Centre’s alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in devolution of resources in New Delhi on Thursday | Shekhar Yadav A democracy that was envisaged as a ‘Union of States’ is slowly and steadily being crippled into an undemocratic ‘Union over States’. We are seeing its manifestations across the country, especially in oppositionruled states Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister March to Jantar Mantar show of support jibe at guvs Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, all his cabinet colleagues, eight MPs and 99 MLAs of the left took out a march from the Kerala House to the protest venue at Jantar Mantar on Thursday morning carrying the banner, ‘Fight to Protect Federalism’. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, DMK leader Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, CPI leader D Raja, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Kapil Sibal took part in stir. Most of the speakers at the protest spoke about how governors are acting at the “behest” of the Centre and disrupting state govts where opposition parties are in power. Saying it in Black & White Govt document alleges UPA rule ruined economy Congress counter flags unemployment, injustice DI PAK M O N DA L @ New Delhi The Narendra Modi-led government on Thursday released a white paper on the Indian economy, loaded with the political message that the Congress-led UPA government considerably weakened the country’s economy during its 10-year rule from 2004-14 whereas the NDA government revived it through reforms and action-oriented policies. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the white paper in Parliament on Thursday a week after she made the , promise in her Budget speech on February 1. The paper attacked the UPA government for its all-round failure in managing the country’s economy, which it said was in sound health in 2004. The white paper sought to highlight the inefficiencies of the Manmohan Singh-led government, such as lack of leadership that triggered a policy paralysis, project delays, and unprecedented scams. The paper also listed out 15 scams of the UPA era including those related to 2G and coal blocks allocation. Brought out just before the general elections, the white paper cherry-picked data and quotes of experts to attack the UPA government for mismanaging public finances, creating a banking crisis, and making Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speaks in the Rajya Sabha during the Budget session of Parliament | pti Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge showing the ‘black paper’ on the BJP govt to mediapersons | Shekhar Yadav India externally vulnerable. The paper termed the banking crisis of 2014 as massive with gross bad loan levels touching as high as 12.3% of the advances ‘largely because of political interference by the UPA government in the commercial lending decisions of public sector banks’. It pointed out that the gross advances by public sector banks were only `6.6 lakh crore in March 2004, but ballooned to `39 lakh crore by March 2012. A big portion of the paper was devoted to the fiscal and inflation mismanagement of the UPA government during the 10-year period. P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi IN a counter to the government’s white paper, the Congress on Thursday released a ‘black paper’, also of 54 pages, highlighting what it termed the social, economic, and political ‘injustices’ committed by the Narendra Modi government in its 10-year rule. Titled 10 Saal Anyay Kal and released by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the document claims that in the past 10 years, the Modi government has “devastated the country’s economy , aggravated unemployment, destroyed the country’s agricultural sector, abetted crimes against women, and committed grave injustices against minorities in the country”. On the jobs front, the document said the BJP rule has witnessed the highest unemployment rate in 45 years. “Total unemployment was 1 crore in 2012 but it rose to about 4 crore in 2022. 10 lakh sanctioned central government posts remain unfilled. The unemployment rate for graduates and postgraduates is about 33%. This is why engineers are becoming coolies and PhDs are applying for railway jobs,” it said. It further said that the Modi government’s tenure has seen an unprecedented reduction in incomes. “The NSSO data that the PM suppressed shows consumer spending falling for the first time since 1973, from `1,501 in 2011-12 to `1,446 in 2017-18,” it added. Listing out the failures of the government, the paper said the prices of essential commodities are at all-time high. “Blunders like demonetisation and a poorly-designed GST completely derailed the economy and destroyed job-generating small businesses,” it said. Farmers were promised doubling of their income, but they received pathetic MSP increases and three farm laws were railroaded through Parliament to enrich the PM’s corporate cronies, it added. It is extremely difficult for opposition states to function as our funds are being cut. (Pinarayi) Vijayan is not here to seek money for his family, he is here to get the allocations due to Kerala. This is our right Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister With a battery of political stalwarts from across the country lining up along with the chief minister and his entire cabinet, the Kerala government’s protest in New Delhi against the Union government’s alleged attempts to undermine cooperative federalism, especially its “discriminatory fiscal policies”, on Thursday virtually turned into a show of strength of the INDIA bloc ahead of the 2024 general election. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was joined by his counterparts from Delhi and Punjab, Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann (both AAP), senior Tamil Nadu minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (DMK), former Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah (National Conference), CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and his CPI counterpart D Raja, among Maldives issue Indian technical personnel to replace 88 troops Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi Amid bilateral talks with Maldives to resolve the issue of 88 Indian military personnel stationed in the archipelago, the foreign office on Thursday said they will be replaced with civilians. “let me say the present military personnel will be replaced by competent Indian technical personnel,’’ said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in response to a query from this newspaper. Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu has been harping on the withdrawal of the 88 military personnel who are primarily attached to operating one helicopter and two Dornier aircraft India had gifted. The planes are used for medical evacuation and rescue operations. On February 2, India had issued a statement after the second core group high level meeting with Maldivian officials in Delhi, saying the matter was work in progress. However, the Maldivian statement said the Indian military will be replaced in phases — the first by March 10 and the rest by May 10. During his first Presidential address in Parliament on Monday, Muizzu confirmed the position that the Indian military will withdraw from Maldives in a phased manner. The next round of the India-Maldives high level core group meeting is slated for the last week of this month in Male. The core group was set up following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Muizzu on the sidelines of the COP28 summit on climate change in Dubai in December. For its part, India said it will continue to support Maldives in all its developmental work. Amid all this drama, the Maldivian government has written to India to renew its 2019 MoU to train 1,000 Maldivian bureaucrats in India over the next five years. Muizzu gets SC relief In a respite for Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the suspension of a recent amendment to Parliament’s standing orders that had made it easier for the opposition lawmakers to impeach the president and the vice president I would like to say that the present personnel will be replaced by competent Indian technical personnel... We remain a committed development partner for the Maldives Randhir Jaiswal, MEA spokesperson Jumbo donated by Jayalalithaa among 2 tortured at Guruvayur M a n o j V i s w a n at h a n @ Kochi interest RATE UNCHANGED Reserve Bank left the key policy rate unchanged at 6.5% for the sixth time. Cost of borrowings for both individuals and corporates may remain stable | P12 The forest department has initiated steps to cancel the licence of four mahouts of the Guruvayur Devaswom for brutally torturing two captive elephants. A video of the mahouts torturing the elephants — Guvurayur Krishna and Junior Kesavan — went viral on Thursday triggering outrage. , The Kerala High Court initiated a suo motu case in connection with the incident and sought a report from the forest department. The Guruvayur Devaswom Board has ordered an inquiry and said stringent action will be taken against all involved. Guruvayur Krishna was donated by former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa during her visit to the temple on July 2, 2001, to fulfil a preelection vow. In the video, the mahouts are seen beating the elephants inside the Guruvayur elephant camp. Heritage Animal Task Force Elephant loses tusk in road accident A video grab shows a mahout beating an elephant at Guruvayur Thrissur: A captive elephant — Kolakkadan Kuttykrishnan — lost one of its tusks after the vehicle in which it was being transported was hit by an LPG truck on the Kodungallur-Paravoor route on Thursday. The elephant was being taken to a festival in Ernakulam when the accident took place. P4 secretary V K Venkitachalam said the video circulating on social media is an edited one. Venkitachalam said he has handed over the original video to the forest department. Forest Minister A K Saseendran said he has sought a report on the incident from the chief wildlife warden. “The forest department has booked two cases in connection with it,” he said. “The four mahouts have been identified as Sarath, handler of Guruvayur Krishna, and Vasu, Suresh Babu and Mohanan, mahouts of Junior Kesavan. Chief Wildlife Warden D Jayaprasad has directed us to initiate stringent action against the mahouts,” said Thrissur Assistant conservator of forest B ● More on P4 Sajeesh Kumar.  others, on the dais at the nat i o n a l c a p i t a l ’s J a n t a r Mantar. However, the Congress, the lead player in the INDIA bloc, stayed away from the event. In his inaugural address, Pinarayi said Kerala’s’ “historic battle” is aimed at saving the spirit of federalism. “A democracy that was envisaged as a ‘Union of States’ is slowly and steadily being crippled into an undemocratic ‘Union over States’. We are seeing its manifestations across the country, especially in opposition-ruled states,” he said. He alleged that governors are acting at the “behest” of the Union government and disrupting state governments where opposition parties are in power. “In many states, including Kerala, we have seen governors trying to overreach their constitutional mandate by meddling with the autonomy of the legislature,” Pi● More on P4 narayi said.  Free border travel accord with Myanmar scrapped M U KE S H RA N JA N @ New Delhi Union Home Minister Amit S h a h o n T h u r s d ay a n nounced the government’s decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the borders with Myanmar so as to ensure the country’s security and the demography of Nor theaster n states. In a social media post on X, Shah said the Ministry of External Affairs is currently in the process of scrapping it after the Ministry of Home Affairs recommended its immediate suspension. The FMR was last amended in 2016 to allow citizens of both India and Myanmar living near the border to venture 16 km into each other’s territory without documents as part of the Act East Policy . Shah made the announcement two days after the decision to fence the entire 1,643 km India-Myanmar border, which passes through Mizoram (510 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Arunachal Pradesh (520 km). Fencing has been a persistent demand of the Imphal valley-based Meitei groups, which have been alleging that tribal militants often enter India through the porous border. They also allege that narcotics are being smuggled in through the unfenced border. Shah had on Tuesday said besides fencing, a patrol track will also be paved to facilitate better surveillance. Two pilot projects of fencing through a hybrid surveillance system are under execution, he added. In July last, the Manipur government claimed that around 700 illegal immigrants had entered the state. Mizoram has also had an influx of anti-junta rebels in thousands since the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021. 18 pages, including 4 pages of KOCHI Express