Imran’s party decides against coalition, to sit in opposition PTI leads, but falls short of nos 24 TIRUCHY l tuesday l february 13, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l LATE CITY EDITION Constituencies’ margin of victory was less than rejected ballots In the final results declared by Pakistan’s Election Commission, Imran’s PTI topped the table with 101 seats as independents, Nawaz’s PML-N 75, Bilawal’s Pakistan Peoples Party 54, MQM-P 17 and smaller parties 17 Kaun banega Pradhan Mantri Nawaz has called for a ‘participatory coalition government’ minus the PTI. Both PML-N and PPP are holding tough power-sharing talks The sticking point is who will head the govt. PPP wants Bilawal as PM. PML-N could propose Shehbaz as PM 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 In diplomatic coup, all 8 naval veterans freed, 7 return to India Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi In what was decidedly a diplomatic coup, India managed to get its eight naval veterans released from Qatar after 16 months of detention in Doha. It was this newspaper that broke the story of their arrest and kept reporting all its subse- quent twists and turns. After their arrest by the Qatar’s Ministry of Interior on August 30, 2022, all eight veterans were awarded capital punishment last year before their sentences were commuted to multiple years in jail and now they have been set free. Seven of the veterans landed in Delhi in the wee hours of Monday on an Indigo flight. The one who is yet to return is Commander Purnendu Tiwari. He is out of captivity but continues to be in Doha due to a travel ban as he faces another case in which he and the CEO of Dhara Global, Khamis AlAjmi (retired Royal Oman Air Force squadron leader), are awaiting clearance. The veterans were working at Dhara when they were arrested. Ajmi was under detention too for some weeks in 2022 but was later released on bail. The Indian government is working on getting Commander Tiwari back to India at the earliest. “Commander Tiwari’s 86year-old mother is awaiting the return of her son to India. She has faith that this will happen soon,” said a source. “We have returned India safe and sound. We would like to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi as this was possible due to his personal interven- tion and also the Emir of Qatar,’’ said Captain Navtej Singh Gill upon his arrival in Delhi. In a related development, Prime Minister Modi will travel to Doha on February 14, after inaugurating the BAPS Temple in Abu Dhabi. Modi will hold bilateral talks with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Ha- mad Al Thani. This is also being viewed as a goodwill visit by Modi after the Emir released the eight naval veterans. The families of the naval veterans lauded the Indian Ambassador in Doha, Vipul, for his unstinting support, updating them about the well being of the veterans all through. Guv refuses to read govt’s text, walks out on speaker’s remark Appavu expunges Ravi’s remarks, reads full Tamil version of customary address Speaker called Guv Nathuram Godse’s follower: Raj Bhavan Paramilitary personnel equipped with anti-riot gears near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border at Gazipur, New Delhi on Monday | Parveen Negi Haryana set to block farmers’ Delhi march H A R P R EE T B A J W a & U J W A L J A L A LI @ Chandigarh / New Delhi E x pr e s s n e w s s e r v i c e @ Chennai Speaker M Appavu reads the Tamil version of the governor’s address to the House. Governor RN Ravi is seen seated next to him in the TN Assembly on Monday | Express T M uru g a n a n d h am & S K umar e s a n @ Chennai For the second consecutive year, the customary address of the governor to the State Assembly ended in a controversy on Monday with Governor RN Ravi refusing to read the complete address prepared by the state citing certain reasons. After the governor abruptly ended his address by reading just the introductory part of it and making some caustic comments on the state government, Speaker M Appavu read out the full Tamil version of the address. The governor remained seated till the speaker completed the exercise. After completing his speech, the speaker gave a sharp reply to the governor’s remarks. At this juncture, the governor stepped down from the podium. Seeing this, the speaker said, “Only after this, the national anthem will be rendered.” As the governor was leaving the House, Leader of the House, Duraimurugan, moved a resolution proposing that the customary address presented to the House in Tamil and English should be taken on record as it is. The House adopted the reso- INSIDE lution unanimously by a voice vote and even the BJP members did not object to it. After this, the speaker said, “Only the text printed in Tamil and English in the customary address will go on record and nothing else,” thus indicating that the remarks made by the governor and himself (speaker) had been expunged. Later, the speaker reiterated this at a press conference. Responding to a question on whether the governor acted in the way he did with any ulterior motive, the speaker said the customary address was okayed by the governor in advance but he expressed his own views in the House. The governor is of the view that the national anthem should be played at the beginning of the session too, the speaker said. “As per the rules of the House, an invocation to the Thamizh Thaai would be rendered at the beginning of the session and the session will end with the national anthem. This is being followed in all state events,” the speaker told reporters. Appavu said the customary address does not have any remarks contrary to truth or any remarks that accuse any government.  P5 CAA won’t be implemented in Tamil Nadu, says govt I P4 The Raj Bhavan on Monday said by launching a tirade against the governor and calling him a follower of Nathuram Godse in the House, Assembly Speaker M Appavu has lowered the dignity of his chair. In a statement explaining the sequence of events that happened during the governor’s address in the House, the Raj Bhavan said, “When the speaker concluded the address, the gover‘Asked state to nor rose for the narespect anthem’ tional anthem as scheduled. The speak“The governor er, however, instead of returned the file following the schedadvising the state to ule, launched a tirade show due respect to against the governor the national anthem. and called him a folThe governor also lower of Nathuram told the state that Godse and more. The the address should speaker, with his unreflect the becoming conduct, government’s lowered the dignity of achievements and his chair and the grace programmes and of the House. While should not be a the speaker went on forum for peddling with his tirade, the misleading governor, with due restatements and gard to the dignity of political views,” the his of fice and the Raj Bhavan said. House, left the Assembly .” The Raj Bhavan also said the draft of the governor’s address was received from the state on February 9. The address had numerous passages with misleading claims far from the truth. “This address has numerous passages with which I convincingly disagree on factual and moral grounds. I lending my voice to them would constitute a constitutional travesty,” the governor said in the House, explaining the reason for refusing to read the full text.  P5 Reading the address would be constitutional travesty I P5 Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday won the confidence motion in the assembly by 129-0 after an opposition walkout. The majority mark is 122 in the 243member assembly . Depuy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari, who was on the chair, announced the NDA’s victory by voice vote but later allowed a head count on the request of parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary . Three RJD MLAs — Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi and Prahlad Yadav — defected and voted in favour of the ruling alliance despite the party whip mandating them to vote against the government. Speaking in the assembly before the trust vote, Nitish recalled that he had strived to bring all opposition parties on one platform, but the Congress had a problem with him. “Your father (Lalu) was hobnobbing with the Congress. I decided nothing will come out of the opposition’s INDIA bloc and left it for good to return to NDA forever,” he told leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav. He also accused the RJD of trying to indulge in horse-trading with hefty offers to MLAs to cross over. Monday’s was the second round of talks between Union ministers and leaders of farmer organisations. The first meeting was held on February 8 Ex-mayor son’s body recovered after 8 days Chennai: Eight days after he went missing, the body of Vetri (45), son of former Chennai mayor Saidai Duraisamy, was recovered at Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh on Monday afternoon. The body will be handed over to his relatives after autopsy on Tuesday. Vetri went missing after his car fell into the Sutlej river | P4 Sale of `29/kg Bharat rice begins in Chennai Freedom at last Luis Har (l), who was taken hostage by Hamas in cross-border raid in October 7 last year, is hugged by relatives after he was rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip on Monday by Israeli forces | ap/pti | P9 J i t e n d ra C h o ub e y @ New Delhi Nitish arrives for the floor test at Bihar Legislative Assembly | PTI Blistering attack from Tejashwi Yadav Criticising Nitish’s claim that he was not feeling good about the mahagathbandhan, Tejashwi said, “Hum log koi naachne gaane ke liye thode hai” (we were not for there for entertainment). If the CM had shared his discomfort, the RJD could have offered outside support to the allaince, he said forces and police personnel equipped with anti-riot gear have be deployed along the border and sensitive districts. Additionally, surveillance drones have been pressed into service to monitor the situation. Sources said the farmers have dry rations, food items, water-proof sheets, and mattresses on tractor-trolleys — indicating they are prepared for the long haul. The protest has been called by farmers unions from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. According to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, around 200 farm unions will march to Delhi. express read CWRC rejects TN’s demand to direct Karnataka to release 7.6 tmcft of water nitish attacks lalu, wins TRUST VOTE easily R ama s h a n kar @ Patna 2nd round of talks FARMERS from Punjab have started moving towards the national capital in a bid to put pressure on the Centre to accept their demands, including a law to guarantee a minimum support price (MSP) for crops, even as Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda on Monday held talks in Chandigarh to impress upon farmer leaders to drop their ‘Delhi Chalo’ march on Tuesday . Section 144 has been clamped in Chandigarh and as many as 15 districts in Haryana. The law prohibits the assembly of four or more people in an area and members of such ‘unlawful assembly’ can be booked for engaging in rioting. The Haryana government has taken elaborate measures to prevent the protesters from entering the state from Punjab, en route their march to Delhi. It has blocked most of the roads passing through the state and leading to the national capital. The Haryana-Punjab border has been sealed with multiple barricades, boulders, and concrete slabs. To boot, large nails have been fixed on roads near the border to prevent the protesters from entering the state on tractors or other vehicles. As for measures to maintain law and order, paramilitary The CWRC (Cauvery Water Regulation Committee) on Monday rejected Tamil Nadu’s demand to direct the Karnataka government to release 7.6 tmcft of water that is due to Tamil Nadu. The committee directed Karnataka to ensure the release of Cauvery water for environmental flows of the river as per the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) modified by the Supreme Court. As per the CWDT award, Karnataka must ensure the natural environmental flows at Biligundulu on the interstate border by releasing 1,000 cusecs per day (2.5 tmcft) for the whole of February to May period. For this, Karnataka doesn’t have to release water from KRS, Kabini, Harini and Hemvathy The four major . Karnataka dams currently have around 37tmcft of water. In the 93rd meeting of the CWRC held under its chair- man Vineet Gupta, the commission told Tamil Nadu that there is no need to release any additional water for irrigation. “Harvesting of crops has already started in Tamil Nadu and there is no requirement for additional water to irrigate crops,” Gupta told TNIE. Tamil Nadu officials, however, said the state needs water for late sowing of crops. The formal irrigation period of Tamil Nadu ended by January 31 and harvesting of crops has already started, the CWRC said. The commission also said northeast monsoon has reduced the demand for water in Tamil Nadu.  P5 Chennai: The sale of subsidised Bharat rice commenced in Chennai on Monday. The rice will be sold through vans by the Union Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs for `29 per kg in 5 kg and 10 kg bags. A total of 22,000 tonnes of rice has been allocated for Tamil Nadu to be sold directly to consumers, sources said | P2 Cong blow Ashok Chavan quits party in maha Former CM Ashok Chavan resigned from the party and his assembly seat amid buzz that he and a dozen others may join BJP. Chavan said he will explore new political alternatives and will take a call soon | P8