TIRUNELVELI l Thursday l January 29, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION Potential bidders for RCB as Rajasthan valued at over $1 bn After months of speculation, reports suggest that over 50 companies have showed an interest in acquiring defending IPL champions representative image $2 billion buzz on bengaluru’s future 4 potential buyers for Rajasthan royals As RCB are one of the most valuable franchises, companies hoping to buy them will have to shell out top dollar. Several reports suggest $2bn but that figure may not be hit. While several Indian companies have shown interest, including vaccine giant, Serum, other names includes Temasek (Singapore), US based businessman, David Blitzer ■ ■ Rajasthan Royals have received a few proposals and the franchise is studying them. The cheapest franchise when they were bought in 2008, it’s expected that any deal will fetch them over a billion. American investor Kal Somani, Times Internet Group, Blackstone and Carlyl Group are reportedly interested in buying the team $1.3bn Four RR bidders have offered as initial bids 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 Maha shocker as Ajit Pawar dies in jet crash 88% voters dropped Four others including two pilots perish; state’s ruling coalition in turmoil; last rites to be held today in Baramati poor visibility, later cleared to laND 1 Ajit Pawar was a leader of the people... his passion for empowering the poor were noteworthy. His untimely demise is saddening A stand was floated from Kolkata that there is politics involved in this incident. There is no politics in it. It was an accident Narendra Modi, Prime Minister The aircraft VI-SSK was trying to land amid poor visibility. It first came in contact with Baramati Air Traffic Controller at 8.18 am 2 Its next call was at 30 nautical miles inbound to Baramati; advised to descend in “visual meteorological conditions” at the pilot’s discretion 3 On first approach to Runway 11, pilot said the runway was not visible and initiated a go-around. On second attempt, the airstrip was spotted 4 The aircraft was cleared to land on runway 11 at 8.43 am, but failed to respond to Baramati ATC. Next minute, it was up in flames Sharad Pawar, NCP chief fatal landings Sanjay Gandhi (1980) Congress leader; died June 23 in a plane crash near Safdarjung Airport, Delhi Madhavrao Scindia (2001) Senior Congress leader died Sept 30 in plane crash near Mainpuri, UP Lok Sabha Speaker; died March 3 in helicopter crash in Krishna district, AP AP CM; died September 2 in helicopter crash in Nallamala forest First CDS; died Dec 8 in Mi-17V5 crash near Coonoor, TN (14 fatalities) Crash site Ajit Pawar Baramati airstrip 22 July 1959 - 28 January 2026 G M C Balayogi (2002) Y S Rajasekhara Reddy (2009) Gen Bipin Rawat (2021) Aeroplane crashes near runway Vijay Rupani (2025) Ex-Gujarat CM; died June 12 in Air India Boeing 787 crash in Ahmedabad (270 total deaths) su d hir surya w anshi @ Mumbai MAHARASHTRA Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others were killed when their chartered aircraft crashed barely 200 metres from the edge of a tabletop runway at Baramati airstrip in Pune district on Wednesday morning. FlightRadar data showed the aircraft departed Mumbai at 8.10 am and disappeared from radar shortly after 8.44 am. The 66-year-old leader, fondly known as Dada (elder brother), was flying from Mumbai to address zilla parishad election rallies near Pune, when the Learjet 45 crashed during a second landing attempt at 8.44 am. Poor visibility forced the pilot to abort the first approach, but moments after receiving clearance for the second attempt, the aircraft burst into flames near the runway threshold without providing the mandatory readback to air traffic control. Also killed were Captain Sumit Kapoor, co-pilot Shambhavi Pathak, Pawar’s personal security officer Vidit Jadhav, and flight attendant Pinki Mali. All five were declared dead at Baramati hospital. Eyewitnesses described watching the aircraft circle the airfield before it “hit the ground hard and exploded,” with the blast heard across the area. Aviation experts said the tragedy could have been avoided if the runway had been equipped with an instrument landing system to guide pilots through marginal visibility . The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is analysing the black box to determine the exact cause. NCP founder Sharad Pawar, Ajit’s uncle, rushed to Baramati where he said, Ajit’s loss is one “that can never be filled”. Chief Minister Devendra Fad- navis declared three days of state mourning and called Ajit’s death a personal loss, describing him as a “trusted friend.” Ajit Pawar served as deputy CM for a record six terms across governments led by Congress, Shiv Sena, and BJP. After splitting from his uncle’s party in July 2023, he secured 41 assembly seats in alliance with the BJP solidifying , his position in state politics. His last rites will be held on Thursday at Vidya Pratishthan ground in Baramati with full state honours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend.  P8 under SIR not given notice, DMK tells SC S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi The ruling DMK on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that 88% of voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state under ‘logical discrepancies and voter mapping’ had not received hearing notices. Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for the party, told a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, “Notices have been generated only for 18 lakh people. There is a gap of 88%. These people have not received notices. The phase is ending on January 30. If a hearing is delayed, the situation would become fait accompli.” When Sibal alleged mass deletions of names from the voter list, the Supreme Court said, “Additions and deletions are part of the electoral roll revision exercise undertaken by the Election Commission.” Delving into the issue of admissibility of Aadhaar card as one of the proofs, the top court pointed out that the possibility of forgery cannot be a ground to reject the 12-digit biometric identifier. The court also told the Election Commission of India (ECI) that if a document is recognised by a statute, it cannot be discarded merely because a private entity is involved in its issuance. representative image The senior lawyer further questioned the transparency, timing and legal basis of the SIR exercise. “Who decides if I am a citizen of India? It is the Government of India, not the Election Commission,” Sibal pointed out and added that the electoral registration officers (EROs) cannot effectively decide citizenship while processing objections or deletions under Form 7. Arguments would continue on Thursday . The top court was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the ECI’s decision to conduct the mammoth exercise of SIR of electoral rolls in several states, including Tamil Nadu, Bihar and others. Defending the entire SIR exercise, the ECI maintained that Aadhaar and voter identity cards cannot be treated as conclusive proof of citizenship. IIP grows at fastest Cricket team says no, but Bangladesh shooters set for India visit pace in 2 yrs in Dec in d ran e e l d as @ Chennai E X P R E S S N EW S S E R V I C E @ New Delhi industrial activity galloped in December 2025 with the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) growth accelerating to 7.8% from 7.2% in November 2025, marking the fastest pace in the last 26 months, government data released on Wednesday showed. The manufacturing sector, which has a 77.6% weight in the index, grew 8.1%, slightly slower than 8.5% in November 2025 but higher than 3.7% in December 2024. The sector was supported by 6.8% growth in mining and 6.3% rise in electricity generation. Observing that the IIP growth in December exceeded expectations, ICRA’s chief economist Aditi Nayar said the surprise was driven by the manufacturing output. She said the growth in this sector was “likely aided by restocking post the festive season, even as the growth in India’s non-oil exports was sluggish in the month”. Within manufacturing, the computer, electronic & optical products category grew 34.9% while motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers rose 33.5%. Dipti Deshpande, principal economist at Crisil, said within manufacturing, GST rationalisation is likely to have benefited food products and automobiles, but export-oriented sectors such as apparel, textiles and chemicals saw moderate IIP growth. Dead migrant worker’s wife, child also killed: Cops G autham S e lv ara j an @ Chennai The murder of a migrant worker from Bihar, whose body was found stuffed in a gunny bag at Indira Nagar in Adyar on Monday morning, has taken a grim turn, with police confirming it to be a triple murder, including that of his two-year-old son. Chennai police teams carried out search operations at multiple locations, including the Perungudi dumpyard, on Wednesday to trace the bodies of the victim’s murdered wife and child. The search led to the recovery of the child’s body from near the Cooum river at Madhya Kailash. Efforts are still under way to locate the woman’s body . Five Bihar workers — Sikandar (33), Narender Kumar (45), Rabindranath Tagore (45) and Bikas (24) — have been arrested in connection with the case. Police are also probing whether the woman was sexually assaulted before being murdered.  P5 Asian meet will begin in New Delhi on Feb 2 & end on Feb 14 DAYS after the Bangladesh cricket team was replaced by Scotland after they refused to travel to India citing security reasons, their shooting team, comprising of two shooters and other support staff, have seemingly confirmed their participation at the Asian Shooting Championships, to be held in Delhi from February 2 to 14. Two of their shooters — Shaira Arefin and Md Robiul Islam — are set to take part in the individual as well as mixed team in the 10m air rifle category. The two have been given clearance by the ministries concerned and the Indian High Commission in Dhaka has been requested to help them with visa formalities. This was confirmed by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) as well. Its secretary, Rajiv Bhatia, while speaking with this daily, said that they have sought all clearances from ministries and as of now their counterparts in Bangladesh have confirmed participa- tion. “They have confirmed and are coming for the championships,” he said. “We have sought clearance from Ministry of External Affairs, Home and sports ministries. We are in touch with Bangladesh team and players. They have confirmed participation and are coming. As of now there is no change.” Interestingly, the cricket team refused to travel to India days after BCCI directed Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman from the roster. Reports in Bangladesh indicate the team has got government nod as well. Refusal to travel might incur the wrath of international shooting federation (ISSF) as well as the International Olympic Committee.