HYDERABAD TUESDAY MAY 28, 2024 `9.00 PAGES 16 LATE CITY EDITION CYCLONE REMAL LEAVES TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION IN BENGAL, FOUR KILLED Strong winds blew away roofs of huts and knocked down power poles, while accompanying downpour caused waterlogging in many areas RAINS TO CONTINUE TILL TUESDAY MORNING FLIGHT SERVICES RESUME AFTER 21 HOURS The cyclone ravaged adjacent coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh between Sagar Island and Khepupara after its landfall process began around 8.30 pm on Sunday. After a night of heavy rainfall, several areas of Kolkata remained inundated. More rainfall is on the cards, not only in the metropolis but also in other parts of the state till Tuesday morning, which may hamper relief works ■ ■ The deaths mostly occurred due to the collapse of roofs and walls of houses due to strong winds and relentless downpours. People have been urged to remain indoors as heavy rain persists in many areas Fight services at the Kolkata airport resumed on Monday morning after remaining suspended for 21 hours because of the cyclone | P7, P9 135 kmph MAXIMUM WIND SPEED RECORDED AS THE CYCLONE TORE THROUGH BENGAL COAST 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 Accused: Tapped phones at behest of peddayana, alludu Confessions claim plan was to arrest BL Santhosh in poaching case to arm-twist BJP into dropping charges against Kavitha EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad “PEDDAYANA” (BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao) and his nephew, former minister T Harish Rao, gave instructions to police officers on tapping phones, according to the confessional statements of former Task Force OSD N Radhakishan Rao and former additional SP N Bhujanga Rao. The confessional statements were made available to the media on Monday. Phones of not only politicians, but also journalists and others were tapped during the BRS rule. Even WhatsApp calls were tracked by the BRS government. The Task Force also seized cash belonging to the Opposition while paving the way for the smooth transportation of money belonging to the BRS, the confessions said. According to confessional statements, Task Force officials, with the help of MLA Pilot Rohith Reddy, trapped private persons and invited them to a farmhouse in Moinabad with regard to the alleged poaching of BRS MLAs by the BJP. An audio clip of the Moinabad incident was also UNLESS there is a last minute change, Bomma Mahesh Kumar Goud will be the next Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president, reliable sources in the party said. They said that a decision to this effect has already been made and an announcement is expected any time after the Lok Sabha election results. Although there were multiple leaders aspiring for the coveted post, the Congress high command made the decision to appoint a BC leader to the TPCC president’s post to strike a social balance in the party as well as the government. The selection of Goud, a leader from the Backward Classes (BC) community, aligns with the Congress party’s “commitment” to do social justice and ensure representation of marginalised sections in the key positions, as outlined in its Lok Sabha election manifesto, the source said. CONTINUED ON P5 EXPRESS READ Over 68.65% graduates cast votes in MLC bypoll Hyderabad: 68.65% polling was recorded in the WarangalKhammam-Nalgonda graduates MLC bypoll on Monday. The main contest is between Ch Naveen alias Teenmaar Mallanna (Congress), Rakesh Reddy (BRS) and G Premender Reddy (BJP) | P4 Phones of politicians & journalists were tapped; even WhatsApp calls were tracked Judicial officers, bureaucrats started avoiding direct calls due to indiscriminate surveillance BRS allowed to shift cash, but Oppn funds seized shared with the KCR, who instructed the police to arrest BJP national leader BL Santhosh. KCR’s plan, according to Radhakishan Rao, was that once Santhosh was arrested, the BJP would agree to a compromise with regard to the ED case registered against his daughter K Kavitha in the Delhi liquor scam. However, due to the “inefficiency of the Cyberabad police”, a key person escaped and subsequently the court issued directions Gujarat HC: Lost faith in state machinery Mahesh Goud to be next TPCC chief? B K A R T H E E K @ Hyderabad MISUSE OF POWER, POSTS, TECH D I L I P S I N G H K S H AT R I YA @ Ahmedabad THE Gujarat High Court on Monday hit out at the Rajkot Municipal Corporation and the state government, saying it has lost faith in the state machinery that turns a blind eye to illegal structures and wakes up only after innocent lives are lost. The sharp remarks came a day after the HC took suomotu note of the blaze at the TRP Game Zone in Rajkot on Saturday evening, which killed at least 28 people. The game zone did not have the fire NOC or other crucial permissions. A special bench of justices Biren Vaishnav and Devan Desai asked the Rajkot civic body why it allowed the game zone to run. The bench was furious when it was told the operators did not apply for permissions. “Were you blind to the existence of this large structure? How do you explain that the entire zone has existed for the last two-and-ahalf years? What fire safety measures were applied?” it asked. When a counsel pointed out that drastic actions must be taken to avoid such incidents in future, the bench said: “Who will take such drastic steps? Frankly we no , longer have faith in the state machinery This is the sixth in. cident in four years after our orders and their assurances. They only act after lives are lost.” The HC posed a volley of questions to the corporation’s counsel, asking why were the court’s earlier orders on fire safety norms not followed. During the hearing, the bench examined photographs showing Rajkot government officials being present at the gaming zone inauguration. “Who were these officers? Were they there for play? Can we not take judicial notice of that fact? For 18 months, what did the corporation do? Just sit on it?” the bench questioned. On Monday the Gujarat gov, ernment suspended five officials from various departments, including two police inspectors, for negligence in the Rajkot fire tragedy . Debris being removed from the game zone site in Rajkot, where 28 died in a blaze | PTI Notice to past Rajkot officials The HC noted that every municipal commissioner starting from the establishment of the TRP Game Zone in 2021 up to the time of the incident “should be held responsible for the tragedy”. It instructed them to provide individual affidavits Jadavpur joust is on a razor’s edge S U L A G N A S E N G U P TA @ Kolkata THE Jadavpur parliamentary constituency is known for its cerebral power as it often sends luminaries to the Lok Sabha. For example, way back in 1984, current Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrested the seat on a Congress ticket from CPM stalwart Somnath Chatterjee. This time around, it could be a toss up between the Trinamool’s Saayoni Ghosh, the CPM’s Srijan Bhattacharyya and the BJP’s Anirban Ganguly because the race is that tight. All three are alumni of Jadavpur University . At 47, Dr Ganguly is the eldest of them. Saayoni and Srijan are 31. Saayoni became the Trinamool Congress youth wing head after Mamata’s nephew and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee vacated the position in 2021. An actor by profession, she got the moniker of a party streetfighter from Mamata. Srijan is member of the CPM’s West Bengal State Committee. He was the State Secretary of the Students’ Federation of India for just over six years till January last. As for Dr Ganguly , he is an academic and chair- man of the BJP’s Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation. While Saayoni parrots Mamata’s seamless connect with the grassroots, adding she introduced various innovative schemes for the upliftment of the poor, Ganguly hammers away at the TMC’s scams under Mamata’s watch and her attempts to shield her tainted party leaders. Saayoni models herself on Mamata’s brand of politics, saying: “I’ve learned that real politics is different from what’s in the textbooks. A true leader understands the people’s needs and struggles, just like Mamata. A leader must be accessible, and I am here for Jadavpur.” Her political From left, Srijan Bhattacharyya, Saayoni Ghosh and Dr Anirban Ganguly ILLUSTRATION: MANDAR PARDIKAR journey began in February 2021 when she joined the TMC and unsuccessfully contested for the Asansol South assembly seat. In contrast, Srijan has been in politics for a long time. He promises to introduce more industries and bring back jobs to the state that were chased away by the current regime. He flogs the Singur example where the then CPM chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya invited the Tatas to set up their Nano plant, but they were driven away by Mamata’s activism. Ganguly is seen mobilising people from other districts for large road shows and rallies with posters and banners in a demonstration of strength across the constituency Sob. ha Rani Deb, a senior voter in Baghajatin area of Jadavpur is critical of Ganguly’s mobilisation. “This is an election, not a festival. Ganguly’s road shows often end up in creating traffic bottlenecks,” she rued. The Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency includes Baruipur Purba (Scheduled Caste), Baruipur Paschim, Sonarpur, Bhangar, Jadavpur, Sonarpur Uttar and Tollygunge assembly segments. It falls within the 24 Parganas district, which is the sixth-most densely populated in India. against the arrest of Santhosh. The confessional statement of Bhujanga Rao said: “Due to fear of indiscriminate surveillance by SIB, many political leaders, judicial officers and bureaucrats avoided direct phone calls and started encrypted communication like WhatsApp, Signal, SnapChat and other social media platforms. Prabhakar Rao (former SIB chief) and his SOT team of Praneeth Kumar started obtaining and analysing IPDRs (Internet Protocol Data Records) to track their communication over internet calls”. CONTINUED ON P4 Below normal monsoon in east, northeast HEATWAVE DAYS In its assessment for June, the weather office also said the number of heatwave days would be above normal over most parts of Northwest India and adjoining areas of Central India J I T E N D R A C H O U B E Y @ New Delhi IN its updated long-range forecast for the upcoming Southwest monsoon season, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday predicted above-normal rainfall over central and south peninsular India and normal rains over northwest India. However, easter n and northeast regions and some northern parts such as Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand may likely see be- low-normal rainfall. “The southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall is most likely to be ‘above normal’ over central India and south peninsular India (greater than 106% of the long-period average), ‘normal’ over north- west India (92-108%) and ‘below normal’ over northeast India (less than 94%),” the weather office said. This means India’s core monsoon zone, where agriculture is mostly rain-fed, will get above-normal rains. The IMD has already predicted the onset of the monsoon over Kerala on May 31. In an unusual development, the Bay of Bengal branch of the monsoon may arrive earlier than the Arabian Sea branch due to cyclone Remal, which has pushed up monsoon wind.
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