HYDERABAD TUESDAY APRIL 23, 2024 `9.00 PAGES 18 LATE CITY EDITION SPICE-MIX PRODUCTS SOLD IN INDIA UNDER LENS OVER CANCER RISK Food safety regulator starts taking samples after Hong Kong and Singapore flagged high ethylene oxide levels in spices-mix products from India ETHYLENE OXIDE IS A GROUP 1 CARCINOGEN FOUR PRODUCTS UNDER SCRUTINY The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said it is taking samples of spices in powder form of all brands, including MDH and Everest—the two companies whose products are under scrutiny in Singapore and Hong Kong. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified ethylene oxide as a Group 1 carcinogen | P12 ■ ■ Singapore and Hong Kong specifically banned the sales of three pre-packaged spice-mix products of MDH—Madras Curry Powder, Curry Powder, Sambhar Masala—and Everest’s Fish Curry Masala Hong Kong food safety regulator warned that those violating the ban could face six months imprisonment and a fine of $50,000 `32,000 cr WORTH OF SPICES EXPORTED BY INDIA IN FISCAL YEAR 2022-23 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 Surat of things Khammam conundrum: Bhatti, Ponguleti meet Kharge in B’luru to come as BJP gets 1st LS seat I R E D DY S R I N I VAS R E D DY HURTING THE PARTY? @ Hyderabad Party’s candidate Dalal elected unopposed D I L I P S I N G H K S H AT R I YA @ Ahmedabad THE BJP on Monday opened its 2024 Lok Sabha account from Surat by winning the constituency without any contest. In the process, Mukeshbhai Dalal became the first candidate of any party since 12 years in a general election to be elected unopposed. The last such instance was of Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav winning the Kannauj Lok Sabha bypoll in 2012 unopposed. Eight other candidates left in the Surat fray withdrew after Congress nominee Nilesh Kumbhani’s nomination form was rejected by returning officer Sourabh Pardhi on Sunday . Kumbhani’s papers had purported inconsistencies in the signatures of his proposers. The papers of the Congress dummy candidate Suresh Padsala, too, were rejected on similar grounds. “As all eight candidates who had successfully filed their papers for the Surat Lok Sabha seat withdrew on Monday Dalal has been elected , unopposed,” said Pardhi. The Surat Congress, however, claimed that the entire exercise was premeditated. Surat Congress leader Pappan Togadia told this newspaper, “I alerted party leaders and the South Gujarat Congress incharge, Usha Naidu, about plot to reject Kumbhani’s papers. But my warnings went unheeded. I believe Kumbhani will IN a bid to quell the anxiety in the party ranks over the delay in the announcement of the candidate for the Khammam Lok Sabha seat, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge met Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy who are lobbying to , get the ticket for their family members, in Bengaluru on Monday . According to sources, Congress workers are displeased with the delay in declaring the MIGHT OF BJP’s Surat seat candidate Mukeshbhai Dalal after he was elected unopposed soon join the BJP .” While the last day for filing nomination papers was Friday , their scrutiny happened the following day. The withdrawal window for candidates closed at 3 pm on Monday . The drama began on Saturday with the BJP questioning the legitimacy of signatures on Kumbhani’s papers. Subsequent scrutiny revealed that three persons who proposed Kumbhani’s candidature claimed their signatures were forged. For his part, Kumbhani alleged that his supporters had been abducted. Curiously, Kumbhani’s proposers are close relatives. All three vanished after the controversy broke. Amid a Congress scramble to legally challenge the rejection of his papers, Kumbhani left for Goa purportedly to avoid signing the papers. There is also speculation about his links with Patidar leaders Alpesh Kathiriya and Dharmik Malaviya, who quit the AAP last week and are said to be bound for the BJP . MONEY While Vikramarka is lobbying for his wife Nandini, Srinivasa Reddy is pushing for the candidature of his brother, Pradeep. The cadre believes that the delay in announcing a candidate is hurting the party’s chances of winning candidates for Khammam, Karimnagar and Hyderabad. They said that while other parties are filing their nominations and taking up massive campaigns, the grand old party is yet to even finalise candidates, which is affecting the Congress’ prospects in the segment. It has been learnt that while Vikramarka has been pushing for the candidature of his wife, Nandini, Srinivasa Reddy is lobbying for his brother, Prasad. In a bid to avoid upsetting the ministers, who are critical to the party’s chances in the state, Kharge sought their opin- ions on who the Congress should field, the sources added. Announcement likely in a day In case the party refuses to nominate a family member of a sitting minister, Vikramarka has proposed the candidature of local Kamma leader Rayala Nageswara Rao, who contested the MLC elections last year. Meanwhile, Srinivasa Reddy has put forward the name of Raghuma Reddy, whose father was elected as an MP in undivided Andhra Pradesh multiple times, the sources said. Sans Cong announcement, Velichala files nomination for Karimnagar seat EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad/ Karimnagar Dr Pemmasani Chandrasekhar of the TDP and Konda Vishweshwar Reddy of the BJP filed their nominations for the Lok Sabha elections on Monday. As per their affidavits, they are two of the richest candidates from the Telugu states: PEMMASANI CHANDRASEKHAR, WHO IS CONTESTING FROM GUNTUR IN AP, HAS: Family assets: `5,705.47 crore Total moveable assets: `5598.64 crore Immovable assets: `106.82 crore Jewellery: `2.40 crore Liabilities: `1,038 crore KONDA VISHWESHWAR REDDY, WHO IS CONTESTING FROM CHEVELLA, HAS: Family assets: `4,500 crore Movable assets: `1,178.73 crore Immovable assets (including family): `1.897 crore Jewellery (including of wife): `11 crore EVEN as the Congress is dillydallying in announcing its candidate for Karimnagar, ticket aspirant Velichala Rajender Rao filed his nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections on Monday. Accompanied by Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, Government Whip Aadi Srinivas and MLAs Kavvampalli Satyanarayana and Medipalli Satyam, he handed over his nomination papers to district collector and returning officer P a m e l a S a t p a t hy a t t h e collectorate. Earlier, Rajender along with senior party leaders and Congress activists held a rally to the collectorate in a show of strength. Speaking to reporters, Satyanarayana said the party high command has already decided to nominate Rajender from Karimnagar and would be making the official announcement on Thursday (April 25). “The Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, along with senior party members and workers, takes part in the nomination rally of Velichala Rajender Rao in Karimnagar on Monday | EXPRESS minister (Prabhakar) and three party MLAs proposed Rajender’s name to the leadership,” he said. Rajender also mentioned that he is confident of securing the ticket to contest from the segment. Meanwhile, this development has set off a debate within the party ranks. It is learnt that the Congress leadership is yet to finalise a candidate and was set to make an announcement within the next two days. While Rajender is most likely to get the nod, the party workers questioned how a minister and Congress MLAs extended their support even without an official announcement from the party. They even alleged that the senior leaders engaged in favouritism and encouraged only one aspirant’s candidaCONTINUED ON P5 ture. After taking their inputs, the AICC president reportedly told both the leaders that the party would decide on whom to nominate from Khammam after consulting former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi apart from Chief Minister and TPCC president A Revanth Reddy and Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy, among other senior leaders, before making an announcement late on Tuesday or Wednesday . Meanwhile, it is learnt that the party leadership also held meetings with ticket aspirants from Khammam, Hyderabad and Karimnagar. EXPRESS READ Revanth accuses Modi of spreading hatred Hyderabad: Taking strong exception to comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during campaigns for the Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said it was shameful of the prime minister to resort to spreading hatred while the country was behind Pakistan and Bangladesh in the world hunger index. Addressing election rallies on Monday, the TPCC president said, “God should be in the temple. Devotion should be in the heart. But, overtaken by madness, the BJP expects people to say ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and vote for the saffron party.” | P4 Militants kill Armyman’s brother in the Valley Srinagar: Ahead of the second phase of voting for Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir, militants opened fire at a house in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district killing one person. The man who died was identified as Mohammad Razak, 40, whose brother serves in the Territorial Army. Security forces launched a search operation on Monday night to nab the attackers HC nixes 24,600 school teacher jobs in West Bengal Call for Telangana govt support Seven grandmasters hail from the state. But professionals and federation members said Telangana needs to increase support to chess to be on par with Tamil Nadu, where Gukesh hails from | P2 S U L A G N A S E N G U P TA @ Kolkata THE Calcutta High Court on Monday cancelled all appointments of teachers and nont e a ch i n g s t a f f re c r u i t e d through the West Bengal School Service Commission’s (WBSSC) State Level Selection Test2016 (SLST-2016) after it found that bribes were paid to secure recruitments. The order will cancel more than 24,000 appointments. About 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the SLST-2016 for D Gukesh shows his Candidates trophy after emerging victorious at the event in Toronto on Sunday | 24,640 vacant posts. A division bench of the court comprising justices Debangsu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi directed the CBI to investigate and submit a report. The court had ordered a reevaluation of the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets of candidates from the 2016 recruitment exam after it received petitions alleging irregularity The re-eval. uation brought to light that many of those selected were recruited against blank OMR sheets. Those recruited in such a way must immediately surrender the salaries they have drawn to the jurisdictional magistrate, the court said in its order. The bench directed the WBSSC to initiate a fresh recruitment process. Reacting to the court order, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her government will challenge the ‘illegal’ verdict. “The court verdict cancel- ling all recruitments is illegal. We stand by those who lost their jobs. We will ensure you get justice, and challenge the order in a higher court,” she said. Training her guns on the BJP, Mamata said: “It has turned the courts into their extended party offices. If the BJP files a PIL, prompt action is taken and people are sent to jail. No action is initiated when others file.” She went on to allege that people aligned with the BJP are given important positions. STEV BONHAGE/FIDE X Gukesh youngest candidate Kharge prestige at stake in son-in-law’s fight to vie for the World crown RAMAKRISHNA BADSESHI @ Kalaburagi S WA R O O P S WA M I N AT H A N @ Chennai SOME of chess’ greatest names have called the coming age ‘the era of Indian chess’. The Polgars, Judit and Susan. Former world champions, Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. For mer Candidate winner, Boris Gelfand, and the only two-time winner of the World Cup, Levon Aronian... they have all heaped praise on the next generation of Indian kids. They were all proved right in the early hours of Monday as D Gukesh, all of 17, completed a logic-defying, history-being-rewritten three weeks in Toronto as he became the youngest ever winner of the Candidates tournament, an elite eight-player field that identifies the next challenger of the World Championships (Gukesh will face Ding Liren later in the year for a shot at immortality). The Chennai boy became only the second Indian after Anand to win the event. In the 14th and final round inside the city’s Great Hall, Gukesh, sole leader by 0.5 points, drew against Hikaru Nakamura after 71 moves. Nakamura, one of the pre-Candidates favourites, needed a win to stay in contention. With white, he gave it his all but never got change on a day when Gukesh stayed rock solid till the very end. While that draw put Gukesh on the brink of victory, there was another match going on on the table next to theirs. It featured Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi, two players who had been joint second coming into the final round. Both players needed a win while hoping the Indian didn’t win. They got the first wish but the win just wouldn’t come for either of them. Both of them kept at it gamely and agreed to draw after a marathon 109 moves and six hours of match play . It feels remarkable that if it wasn’t for an elite-level tournament arranged in short notice, Gukesh wouldn’t have qualified. The Tamil Nadu government played a helping hand in bringing the event to Chennai. This Candidates title completes a remarkable turnaround for the GM D Gukesh. From August, he had been on a downward spiral. Post a loss to Carlsen at the World Cup, he had felt out of it. “I wasn’t in a good mental space,” he had said. Now, he must be in the P13 good mental space. CONGRESS chief Mallikarjun Kharge is not contesting from the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency but he is putting all his might to win this SC-reserved seat, which he lost in the 2019 general elections. That shocking defeat dented his image as Solillada Saradara (one who has not tasted defeat). And to reclaim his reputation, Kharge has fielded his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani in Gulbara. For the octogenarian, Kalaburagi (formerly Gulbarga) is his karma bhumi, which elected him 10 times to the Assembly and twice to the Lok Sabha. Doddamani is also Kharge’s brother-in-law as he is the younger brother of Radhabai Kharge. In line with the popular saying in Hindi Sari duniya ek taraf, joru ka bhai ek taraf (The whole world is on one side, wife’s brother on the other side), Kharge has already addressed public gatherings twice in Kalaburagi in the past month, and is visiting again on April 24. The veteran leader gets daily updates from Doddamani, while his son Priyank Kharge and s t r o n g f o l l owe r Dr Sharanaprakash Patil are sweating it out in the scorching summer heat to ensure victory . The Congress has systematically planned Doddamani’s election campaign. While the party has claimed credit for implementing the five guarantees and amending Article 371J for Kalyana Karnataka Region, Priyank and Sharanaprakash have been meeting caste groups and working classes separately . Also, people are sympathetic towards Doddamani because of his soft manners and he is using the strategies that Kharge used to win Assembly and Parliament elections. But the BJP is equally determined to retain the Gulbarga seat and has fielded the sitting MP Umesh Jadhav, who defeated Kharge in 2019. It was from K a l abu r a g i t h at Prime Minister Narendra Modi ILLUSTRATION: MANDAR PARDIKAR launched the saffron party’s election campaign in Karnataka on March 16, the day the Election Commission of India announced the Lok Sabha poll schedule for the country . However, Jadhav has to square off anti-incumbency. Sensing the mood against him for not being able to bring projects to Kalaburagi, PM Modi launched a mega textile park in the district last year and two direct trains between Bengaluru and Kalaburagi recently During his tour of . villages, Jadhav is seeking votes for his work as well as for Modi’s achievements. Of the eight assembly constituencies in the Gulbarga LS constituency , six are represented by Congress MLAs. The remaining two are shared between the BJP and the JD(S).
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