kochi l tuesday l February 13, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l late city EDITION Imran’s party decides against coalition, to sit in opposition Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf would sit in the opposition despite having a majority in the recently concluded Parliamentary elections PTI leads, but falls short of majority Kaun banega Pakistan ka pradhan mantri 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. Imran’s party was not allowed to contest as a single party with a common symbol, making it ineligible to get reserved seats, thus falling short of majority ■ ■ 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 government. PPP wants Bilawal as prime minister. PML-N could propose Shehbaz as the premier as Nawaz does not appear keen to lead a ragtag coalition 24 Constituencies’ margin of victory was less than rejected ballots 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 Massive blast at cracker storage unit leaves two dead, 22 injured Explosion at illegal facility while unloading firecrackers for temple fest at Puthiyakavu 180 houses in the locality suffer damage; impact felt up to three km of the site A N IL K U M A R T & A R U N M @Kochi Two persons were killed and 22 others injured — four of them critically — in a massive explosion at an illegal firecracker storage facility located in a densely populated area at Choorakkad near Tripunithura on Monday. The blast occurred while boxes containing firecrackers — brought for the festival at Puthiyakavu Devi temple which is just 3 km away — were being unloaded from a vehicle. A building adjacent to the blast spot was destroyed while around 180 houses in the vicinity were partially damaged. The impact of the blast was felt up to 3km. Several vehicles, electronic items and furniture in nearby houses, as well as roofs of several buildings, were damaged under the impact. Window panes of houses located even 800m away from the accident spot were shattered in the explosion that shook the area. Several people in the locality felt uneasy and a few elderly people experienced hearing is- Four arrested Four persons — two functionaries of the Puthiyakavu Devi Temple Devaswom and two workers employed by fireworks contractor—arrested The firecrackers were stored at the site without permission from the authorities The mangled remains of the vehicle, in which the firecrackers were brought, lying at the explosion site at Choorakkad near Tripunithura on Monday | A Sanesh sues after the blast. The vehicle that transported the firecrackers from Palakkad and a car that was parked near the storage unit were gutted in the blast. The deceased are Vishnu, 27, a resident of Ullur in Thiruvananthapuram, and Divakaran, 55. Vishnu was the driver of the pickup van that brought the firecrackers. The injured persons include the workers who were unloading the crackers and the residents nearby. They are under treatment at various hospitals. Meanwhile, the Hill Palace Police arrested four persons, including two functionaries of Puthiyakavu temple devaswom which organises the temple fes- Police said the exact reason for the explosion is yet to be ascertained tival, in connection with the explosion. The firecrackers were stored at the site without the required permission. “The permission of the district collector is required for storing firecrackers. They had no such permission,” Ernakulam District Collector N S K Umesh told reporters after visiting the acci● More on P4 dent site. Nitish attacks Lalu, wins trust vote easily Paramilitary personnel equipped with anti-riot gear near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border at Gazipur, New Delhi, on Monday | Parveen Negi Talks remain inconclusive, farmers start 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 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 as talks between the Centre and union leaders fell through. Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda on Monday held closed-door deliberations with union leaders but no agreement could be reached on key demands such MSP and loan waiver with the two sides sticking to their positions. Jagjit Singh Dallewal, president of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Sidhupur) said the five-hour marathon meeting yielded no results as the government sought more time to consider the key demands. Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, alleged the government did not appear to be serious. Sources said the ministers agreed to withdraw the cases against farmers registered during the 2020-21 agitation and also offered to provide compensation to families of farmers who lost their lives during the previous protest. However, the farm unions stuck to their demand for MSP . Meanwhile, the Haryana government has taken elaborate measures to keep off the protesters, by blocking the roads passing through the state and leading to the national capital. The Haryana-Punjab border has been sealed and paramilitary personnel have been deployed. Drones have been pressed into service to monitor the situation. Sources said the farmers are carrying dry rations and mattresses — for the long haul. Section 144 has been clamped in 15 districts in Haryana. In Delhi, the authorities on Monday clamped prohibitory orders in the entire city . R ama s h ankar @ Patna 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 243-member assembly Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Haz. ari, 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 K u m a r Choudhary . Three RJD MLAs — Chetan Anand, Neelam Devi and Prahlad Nitish arrives for the Yadav — defloor test at Bihar Legislative Assembly | PTI fected 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. Kerala says no to Modi’s pic in ration shops E x pr e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ T’Puram Alleging that the Union government’s insistence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph should be displayed in ration shops was part of BJP’s election campaign, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said the Centre’s direction will not be implemented in Kerala. The state will look into the prospects of taking up the issue with the Election Commission, Pinarayi told the state assembly during question hour on Monday . “The rationing system has been existing in Kerala for quite long. So are the ration shops. The Centre has mooted an unprecedented campaign. With the Lok Sabha elections around the cor ner, it’s definitely planned as part of the poll campaign. We’ll inform the Centre that it’s not right, hence difficult to implement. Also, the government will examine whether the matter can be taken up with the Election Commission,” he said. Food and Civil Supplies Minister G R Anil said the Union government The Centre has mooted an unprecedented campaign. With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, it’s definitely planned as part of the poll campaign. We’ll inform the Centre that it’s not right, hence difficult to implement — Pinarayi Vijayan, CM has directed the state food department and the Food Corporation of India to erect Modi’s photographs in over 14,000 ration shops in Kerala, and file a compliance report. It has also directed to distribute ration goods in carry bags with Union government logo. He said it was not right to misuse the ration distribution system for election campaigning. Earlier, the state had rejected a direction from the Union government for branding houses constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). The direction was to display the PMAY logo at the houses. In Kerala, houses are constructed under the LIFE Mission programme, in which the state government bears over 80% of the cost. 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 subsequent 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 ar- EXPRESS READ Chazhikadan is LDF candidate in Kottayam Kottayam: Taking an early advantage in the run-up to the LS polls, the Kerala Congress (M) declared sitting MP Thomas Chazhikadan as LDF candidate for Kottayam constituency. KC (M) chairman Jose K Mani announced the candidate after the party state secretariat and state committee meetings in Kottayam on Monday. P4 No luck on Day 3; jumbo mission to resume today Videograb of the veterans arriving at the Delhi airport | PTI rested. 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 86-year-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 intervention and also the Emir of Qatar,’’ said Captain Navtej Singh Gill upon his arrival in Delhi. Mananthavady: The mission to tranquilise and capture Belur Makhna, the wild elephant that killed a farmer in Mananthavady on Saturday, failed on the third day too as officials were unable to dart the jumbo despite spotting it just 100m away. The mission will resume on Tuesday. P5 TN guv refuses to read customary address Chennai: For the second consecutive year, the customary address of the governor to the Tamil Nadu assembly ended in a controversy with Governor R N Ravi refusing to read the complete address prepared by the state government. P5 16 pages, including 4 pages of KOCHI Express