c m y k - the pioneer...rahul gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the...

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T he Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is on course to retain all the seven seats that it had won in 2014 in Delhi. BJP candidates continued to dominate the trends with five of its candi- dates taking the lead by the highest mar- gins ever. BJP’s roller coaster victory that remains a mere for- mality now, saw Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being relegated to second place on five and two seats respec- tively. The AAP’s rout in Delhi was complete with its treasur- er Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dileep Pandey from North east and Brijesh Goyal from New Delhi seat forfeited their deposits. The poor performance of AAP in Delhi was complete after it failed in security lead in the 67 Assembly seats that it had won in 2015 Delhi Assembly elections. Its candidates were placed third in vote share in 48 Assembly constituencies. Even Gole Market and Patpraganj seats held by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia voted poorly in favour of AAP candidates. The BJP already went into celebratory mode with jubilant sup- porters of the saffron party starting to burst crackers and shouting slogans at various counting centres. Singer- turned-politician Hans Raj Hans was leading in the Northwest Delhi constituency with a whopping margin of 5.04 lakh votes. He is pitted against AAP’s Gugan Singh, who is on the second position and Congress’ Rajesh Lilothia at the third spot. M odi hai to mumkin hai. The evocative tagline of the BJP campaign aptly reflects the party’s massive victory in the Lok Sabha polls. The brand ‘Modi’ has outshone every competitor, be it regional satraps or Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who found few takers for his “chowkidar chor hai” jibe at the PM. The result shows the BJP has emerged as a pan-India force as the saffron party made big inroad into the strongly protected fortresses of Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal and Navin Patnaik’s Odisha. Except Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the footprint of the BJP is clearly visible all over the country. The result emphatically negated pre-poll calculations that the coming together of anti-BJP forces in several States could stop Modi’s juggernaut there. While the Uttar Pradesh’s mahagathbhandhan of Samajhwadi Party and BSP did pull down the BJP a bit, but in Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Maharashtra, no one could withstand the force of the all- pervasive Modi wave. The outcome is particular- ly worrisome for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had emerged as the most vocal critic of the Prime Minister during the poll campaign. All the seven phas- es of the polls were marred by violence, and both the PM and BJP chief Amit Shah had warned that those engaged in bloodletting will pay for it after the elections. Now, that the BJP stands neck and neck with the TMC in terms of tally and its voting percentage has increased phenomenally, the party is expected to make a big push to grab power in the State in next Assembly polls. The West Bengal result shows that, like in every other part of India, there has been a significant consolidation of Hindu voters in the State with 27 per cent Muslim population. The BJP’s strategy to centre its campaign around Hindutva paid off rich dividends. The BJP victory is all the more significant because the party crossed halfway mark of 50 per cent seats in 17 States such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh among others. The Congress will have a lot to think after its pathetic show. Rahul Gandhi may have won from Wayanad with a record margin, but his humil- iating defeat at the hands of Smriti Irani in the family pock- et borough of Amethi is the cruelest blow the BJP has inflicted on the Congress chief. The results show that in direct contest with the BJP, the Congress has no chance to survive. The two parties were locked in direct contest on 184 seats, of which 174 went to the BJP. There is no denying the fact that Hindutva and nation- alism were the two most prominent agenda for the BJP. No surprise Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was able to van- quish veteran Digvijaya Singh despite calling Nathuram Godse a nationalist. Giriraj Singh’s massive victory over Kanhaiya Kumar is also reflec- tion of the success of the party’s Hindutva agenda. The BJP victory is undoubtedly fuelled by the support of all sections and caste, but it is believed that even a significant section of the Muslim voted for the saffron outfit. Senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi put this number to 30 per cent. Related copies on P5/6/7 S tating that the landslide repeat mandate has sur- prised the whole world and put forward a “new narrative” for India for waging a decisive bat- tle against poverty, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday promised that he would go all-out to live up to the “big trust” reposed on him by the people. The PM said he would carry all political parties along to make the country prosperous and strong. Modi, who walked into the BJP headquarters in the evening along with party chief Amit Shah to a tumultuous welcome with thousands of workers chanting “Modi- Modi”, “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Vande Mataram’, said the ulti- mate victor in the elections are people of India who “ fought the polls”. He said political pundits will have to re-visit their tools to analyse the repeat “prachand bahumat” (massive mandate)” saying “this is new India”. Taking a dig at political parties deriving their suste- nance from the “tag of secu- larism”, Modi said they were silenced by the big political vic- tory of BJP in 2014. “2014 tak us jamat ne bolna band kar diya”, he said saying they were “de-masked”. Vowing that he would go beyond caste-based considera- tions, the Prime Minister said, “Caste-based political parties received a big shock this elec- tion”, adding, “with the spirit which prevailed during free- dom movement we can remove poverty during 2019 to 24”. Detailing his welfare schemes which fulfilled aspi- rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class, Modi said his Government would fast-track its war against poverty next five-year. Taking a dig at Left parties and their alleged commitment to the welfare of workers, he said the BJP Government provided pension to 40 crore labourers in the unorganised sector. Even as Shah in his address to workers directly attacked dynasty, caste and politics of appeasement and the setback they got in the poll results, the Prime Minister said he would let go of what happened during polls and run the Government with the consensus of all. “Governments are formed by majority but run by con- sensus of all”, he said adding “we have to look ahead” and taken even our political rivals with us for making India a prosperous and strong country. Thanking all party workers for their “selfless work”, Modi said “aapne is fakir ki jholi bhar di” and it is time “I fulfil my promises”. In 2014, he said people did not know him but trusted and “now you trusted after knowing me”. Shah, in his speech, said BJP won more than 50 per cent votes in 17 States including in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. He said this (50 per cent) vote was achieved by shaking up the traditional caste calcu- lations. A fter its success in the three Assembly elections last year, the Congress once again performed miserably against the BJP at the national level. The party president Rahul Gandhi faced the mortification of a humiliating defeat at the hands of Smriti Irani in the family bastion of Amethi. The party scored a duck in 18 States and saw nine of its former Chief Ministers biting the dust. For the second time, the grand old party did not get enough number to bag leader of Opposition post in the Lok Sabha. While Rahul lost from Amethi, there were no takers for sister Priyanka Gandhi in UP. The party lost all the seats where Priyanka campaigned or conducted road-shows. The only face saver for Congress was Kerala (15) and Punjab (8) which helped the party reach a tally 51 (till 8pm) seats which is merely seven more from the tally of 2014 General elections. The States where the Congress could not even open its account include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Jammu Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Apart from these, the Congress also has no presence in Andaman and Nicobar, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura. The UPA which has Congress as its main con- stituents could not even touch three digit figure with its major alliance partners like NCP, JD(S) and others showing a dis- mal performance. Senior Congress leaders who lost included Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge from Kalaburgi in Karnataka, former Delhi CM Shiela Dikshit from North East Delhi, former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh from Bhopal, former Maharashtra Chief Ministers Ashok Chavan from Nanded. L eft and Congress were blown off, TMC lost much of its roof in the Saffron Fani as 2019 election results on Thursday saw BJP seriously denting Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold. In an extraordinarily polarised atmosphere, the Lok Sabha poll results found BJP making massive inroads into TMC “green fort” of Bengal apparently getting a huge chunk of Left Front votes to swing its way. According to last reports — even as VVPATs were being counted — the ruling Trinamool Congress was leading in 22 seats con- ceding 12 seats to the BJP which was leading in 18 seats. The Congress which won four seats in 2014 was leading in only two seats with former PCC pres- ident and sitting MP Adhir Chowdhury clinching the Behrampore seat and AH Khan Chowdhury lead- ing from the Malda South seat. Making a record of sorts the Left Front not only transferred 23 per cent votes to the saffron out- fit but also for the first time since 1955 drew a blank sending no MP from the erstwhile Red citadel. Percentage-wise the TMC polled about 43 per cent votes while the BJP got about 41 per cent votes wresting almost 23 per cent votes from the Left which got just about 8 per cent. O nly six months ago, after the Congress formed Government in Madhya Pradesh with 114 Assembly seats out of 230, it was believed that the Congress’ tally would certainly improve in the Lok Sabha elections. However, the Congress lost two more seats and could win only one seat out of 29. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was in possession of 27 seats and later in the by-election, the BJP had lost Jhabua seats, increasing Congress tally to three seats. The party even could not match its own lowest ever performance of 2014 when the party had ended up with two seats – Chhindwara and Guna. This time it is only Chhindwara where the Congress party won los- ing all the remaining 28 seats, a fig- ure anyone hardly imagined was possible after party’s resurgence in 2018 when BJP’s 15 years of rule was halted. Besides, Nakul Nath who won in Chhindwara, his father and the Chief Minister Kamal Nath too won in the assembly by-poll in Chhindwara. Almost the entire Congress party was forced to bite the dust in the state. Among the two, Nath junior who was to win as a cakewalk against a little known Natthan Shah could barely win by a margin of 37,536. Father Kamal Nath too trudged to win with little over 25,000 votes against a local candidate Vivek Sahu. The dismal outcome however does not augur well for the Kamal Nath government keeping afloat with the support of SP, BSP and four independents. The defeat of the party seniors –all of them—including Digvijay Singh from Bhopal, Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Arun Yadav from Khandwa, Kantilal Bhuria from Ratlam, Ajay Singh from Sidhi and Meenakshi Natrajan from Mandsaur has shaken up the party organisation completely. The win- ning margins which went upto five lakh and above also narrated the tale of wrong candidate selection by the Congress party. RNI Regn. No. MPENG/2004/13703, Regd. No. L-2/BPLON/41/2006-2008 C M Y K C M Y K

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Page 1: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

�������������� ��������

The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) is on course to retain

all the seven seats that it hadwon in 2014 in Delhi. BJPcandidates continuedto dominate the trendswith five of its candi-dates taking the leadby the highest mar-gins ever. BJP’s rollercoaster victory thatremains a mere for-mality now, sawCongress and AamAadmi Party (AAP)being relegated to second placeon five and two seats respec-tively.

The AAP’s rout in Delhiwas complete with its treasur-er Pankaj Gupta from ChandniChowk, Dileep Pandey fromNorth east and Brijesh Goyalfrom New Delhi seat forfeitedtheir deposits.

The poor performance ofAAP in Delhi was completeafter it failed in security lead in

the 67 Assembly seats that ithad won in 2015 DelhiAssembly elections.

Its candidates were placedthird in vote share in 48

Assembly constituencies.Even Gole Market andPatpraganj seats held byChief Minister ArvindKejriwal and his deputyManish Sisodia votedpoorly in favour of AAP

candidates.The BJP already

went into celebratorymode with jubilant sup-porters of the saffron

party starting to burst crackersand shouting slogans at variouscounting centres. Singer-turned-politician Hans RajHans was leading in theNorthwest Delhi constituencywith a whopping margin of5.04 lakh votes.

He is pitted against AAP’sGugan Singh, who is on thesecond position and Congress’Rajesh Lilothia at the thirdspot.

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Modi hai to mumkin hai.The evocative tagline of

the BJP campaign aptly reflectsthe party’s massive victory inthe Lok Sabha polls. The brand‘Modi’ has outshone everycompetitor, be it regionalsatraps or Congress presidentRahul Gandhi, who found fewtakers for his “chowkidar chorhai” jibe at the PM.

The result shows the BJPhas emerged as a pan-Indiaforce as the saffron party madebig inroad into the stronglyprotected fortresses of MamataBanerjee’s West Bengal andNavin Patnaik’s Odisha. ExceptKerala and Tamil Nadu, thefootprint of the BJP is clearlyvisible all over the country.

The result emphaticallynegated pre-poll calculationsthat the coming together ofanti-BJP forces in several Statescould stop Modi’s juggernautthere. While the Uttar Pradesh’smahagathbhandhan ofSamajhwadi Party and BSP didpull down the BJP a bit, but inBihar, Jharkhand, Karnatakaand Maharashtra, no one couldwithstand the force of the all-pervasive Modi wave.

The outcome is particular-ly worrisome for West Bengal

Chief Minister MamataBanerjee, who had emerged asthe most vocal critic of thePrime Minister during the pollcampaign. All the seven phas-es of the polls were marred byviolence, and both the PMand BJP chief Amit Shah hadwarned that those engaged inbloodletting will pay for itafter the elections. Now, thatthe BJP stands neck and neckwith the TMC in terms oftally and its voting percentagehas increased phenomenally,the party is expected to makea big push to grab power in theState in next Assembly polls.

The West Bengal resultshows that, like in every otherpart of India, there has been asignificant consolidation ofHindu voters in the State with27 per cent Muslim population.The BJP’s strategy to centre itscampaign around Hindutvapaid off rich dividends.

The BJP victory is all themore significant because theparty crossed halfway mark of50 per cent seats in 17 Statessuch as Gujarat, Maharashtra,Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, UP,Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradeshamong others.

The Congress will have alot to think after its patheticshow. Rahul Gandhi may have

won from Wayanad with arecord margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands ofSmriti Irani in the family pock-et borough of Amethi is thecruelest blow the BJP hasinflicted on the Congress chief.

The results show that indirect contest with the BJP, theCongress has no chance tosurvive. The two parties werelocked in direct contest on184 seats, of which 174 went tothe BJP.

There is no denying thefact that Hindutva and nation-alism were the two mostprominent agenda for the BJP.No surprise Sadhvi PragyaSingh Thakur was able to van-quish veteran Digvijaya Singhdespite calling NathuramGodse a nationalist. GirirajSingh’s massive victory overKanhaiya Kumar is also reflec-tion of the success of the party’sHindutva agenda.

The BJP victory isundoubtedly fuelled by thesupport of all sections andcaste, but it is believed that evena significant section of theMuslim voted for the saffronoutfit.

Senior BJP leader MukhtarAbbas Naqvi put this numberto 30 per cent.

Related copies on P5/6/7

������������ �� ��������

Stating that the landsliderepeat mandate has sur-

prised the whole world and putforward a “new narrative” forIndia for waging a decisive bat-tle against poverty, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onThursday promised that hewould go all-out to live up tothe “big trust” reposed on himby the people. The PM said hewould carry all political partiesalong to make the countryprosperous and strong.

Modi, who walked intothe BJP headquarters in theevening along with party chiefAmit Shah to a tumultuouswelcome with thousands ofworkers chanting “Modi-Modi”, “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and“Vande Mataram’, said the ulti-mate victor in the elections arepeople of India who “ foughtthe polls”.

He said political punditswill have to re-visit their toolsto analyse the repeat “prachandbahumat” (massive mandate)”saying “this is new India”.

Taking a dig at politicalparties deriving their suste-nance from the “tag of secu-larism”, Modi said they weresilenced by the big political vic-tory of BJP in 2014. “2014 takus jamat ne bolna band kardiya”, he said saying they were“de-masked”.

Vowing that he would gobeyond caste-based considera-tions, the Prime Minister said,“Caste-based political partiesreceived a big shock this elec-tion”, adding, “with the spiritwhich prevailed during free-dom movement we can removepoverty during 2019 to 24”.

Detailing his welfareschemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers,labourers and middle-class,Modi said his Governmentwould fast-track its war against

poverty next five-year. Takinga dig at Left parties and theiralleged commitment to thewelfare of workers, he said theBJP Government providedpension to 40 crore labourersin the unorganised sector.

Even as Shah in his addressto workers directly attackeddynasty, caste and politics ofappeasement and the setbackthey got in the poll results, thePrime Minister said he wouldlet go of what happened duringpolls and run the Governmentwith the consensus of all.

“Governments are formedby majority but run by con-sensus of all”, he said adding“we have to look ahead” andtaken even our political rivalswith us for making India aprosperous and strong country.

Thanking all party workersfor their “selfless work”, Modisaid “aapne is fakir ki jholi bhardi” and it is time “I fulfil mypromises”. In 2014, he saidpeople did not know him buttrusted and “now you trustedafter knowing me”.

Shah, in his speech, saidBJP won more than 50 per centvotes in 17 States including inAndhra Pradesh, Gujarat,Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

He said this (50 per cent)vote was achieved by shakingup the traditional caste calcu-lations.

����������������� ��������

After its success in the threeAssembly elections last

year, the Congress once againperformed miserably againstthe BJP at the national level.The party president RahulGandhi faced the mortificationof a humiliating defeat at thehands of Smriti Irani in thefamily bastion of Amethi.

The party scored a duck in18 States and saw nine of itsformer Chief Ministers bitingthe dust. For the second time,the grand old party did not getenough number to bag leaderof Opposition post in the LokSabha.

While Rahul lost fromAmethi, there were no takersfor sister Priyanka Gandhi inUP. The party lost all the seatswhere Priyanka campaigned orconducted road-shows.

The only face saver forCongress was Kerala (15) andPunjab (8) which helped theparty reach a tally 51 (till 8pm)seats which is merely sevenmore from the tally of 2014

General elections.The States where the

Congress could not even openits account include Rajasthan,Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana,Uttarakhand, Odisha, JammuKashmir and HimachalPradesh. Apart from these, theCongress also has no presencein Andaman and Nicobar,Dadra and Nagar Haveli,Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep,Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkimand Tripura.

The UPA which hasCongress as its main con-stituents could not even touchthree digit figure with its majoralliance partners like NCP,JD(S) and others showing a dis-mal performance.

Senior Congress leaderswho lost included Lok SabhaMallikarjun Kharge fromKalaburgi in Karnataka, formerDelhi CM Shiela Dikshit fromNorth East Delhi, formerMadhya Pradesh CM DigvijaySingh from Bhopal, formerMaharashtra Chief MinistersAshok Chavan from Nanded.

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Left and Congress were blown off,TMC lost much of its roof in the

Saffron Fani as 2019 election results onThursday saw BJP seriously dentingMamata Banerjee’s stronghold.

In an extraordinarily polarisedatmosphere, the Lok Sabha poll resultsfound BJP making massive inroadsinto TMC “green fort” of Bengalapparently getting a huge chunk of LeftFront votes to swing its way.

According tolast reports — evenas VVPATs werebeing counted — the ruling TrinamoolCongress was leading in 22 seats con-ceding 12 seats to the BJP which wasleading in 18 seats.

The Congress which wonfour seats in 2014 was leading inonly two seats with former PCC pres-ident and sitting MP AdhirChowdhury clinching the Behramporeseat and AH Khan Chowdhury lead-

ing from the Malda South seat.Making a record of sorts the

Left Front not only transferred 23per cent votes to the saffron out-

fit but also for the first time since1955 drew a blank sending no MPfrom the erstwhile Red citadel.

Percentage-wise the TMCpolled about 43 per cent votes while

the BJP got about 41 per cent voteswresting almost 23 per cent votes fromthe Left which got just about 8 per cent.

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Only six months ago, after theCongress formed Government

in Madhya Pradesh with 114Assembly seats out of 230, it wasbelieved that the Congress’ tallywould certainly improve in the LokSabha elections. However, theCongress lost two more seats andcould win only one seat out of 29.

In the last Lok Sabha elections,the BJP was in possession of 27 seatsand later in the by-election, the BJPhad lost Jhabua seats, increasingCongress tally to three seats.

The party even could not matchits own lowest ever performance of2014 when the party had ended upwith two seats – Chhindwara andGuna.

This time it is only Chhindwarawhere the Congress party won los-ing all the remaining 28 seats, a fig-ure anyone hardly imagined waspossible after party’s resurgence in2018 when BJP’s 15 years of rule washalted.

Besides, Nakul Nath who won inChhindwara, his father and theChief Minister Kamal Nath too

won in the assembly by-poll inChhindwara. Almost the entireCongress party was forced to bite thedust in the state.

Among the two, Nath juniorwho was to win as a cakewalkagainst a little known Natthan Shahcould barely win by a margin of37,536.

Father Kamal Nath too trudgedto win with little over 25,000 votesagainst a local candidate VivekSahu.

The dismal outcome howeverdoes not augur well for the KamalNath government keeping afloatwith the support of SP, BSP and fourindependents.

The defeat of the party seniors–all of them—including DigvijaySingh from Bhopal, JyotiradityaScindia from Guna, Arun Yadavfrom Khandwa, Kantilal Bhuriafrom Ratlam, Ajay Singh from Sidhiand Meenakshi Natrajan fromMandsaur has shaken up the partyorganisation completely. The win-ning margins which went upto fivelakh and above also narrated the taleof wrong candidate selection by the Congress party.

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���������� ��� ������������������� �����!!�'������( RNI Regn. No. MPENG/2004/13703, Regd. No. L-2/BPLON/41/2006-2008

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Page 2: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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It was a wonderful day spentby school students on

Thursday as they learnt to cre-ate something new and uniqueat the Art and Craft Workshop.

The summer camp of artand craft is being organised byEkrang Socio Welfare Societyat Mayaram Srijan Bhavan. Atthe monthlong summer campthe participants are enhancingthier creative skills.

From Best out of Waste todifferent forms of paintings allare taught to the participants.Starting from the basics likecutting, pasting and folding, thechildren have learnt to make2D and 3D objects. They are

also learning to make the dec-orative items, greeting cards,and also 3D projects as well.

Expert Swati Joshi is train-ing them in fifferent art works.Recently the participantslearned to create 3D modelsand artistic pieces from paper.It was a wonderful experiencefor all of them.

The young artists are learn-ing to create various art piecesthat portray their hidden out-look about what they feel.

They wonderfully playedwith the colours and createdpieces according to their artis-tic perceptions. Under ceram-ic workshop the children arealso taught to create their dif-ferent pieces using paper-

mache.Interestingly, the children

are enjoying the workshop andare taking full pleasure of it asthey are learning new thingsunder it. The workshop wouldcontinue till June 2.

Notably, Ekrang SocioCultural Society every yearorganizes summer workshopfor the school students to learnnew things that may alsoinclude dance, music, painting,acting, theatre, embroidery andmore. These workshops arebeing organised for the stu-dents to enhance their skillsinto different artistic fieldswhich may also prove benefi-cial for them in the coming years.

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Under the popular museumseries ‘Exhibit of the

Month’ of Indira GandhiRashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya,a traditional object is displayedin the appearance for a wholemonth.

The exhibit for the monthof May is the exhibit for themonth of May, 2019 –‘Chamunda Kali’ (A WoodenGambhira mask of GoddessKali) from Polia and Deshicommunities of Dinajpur,Jalpaiguri and Koch Bihar dis-tricts of West Bengal hasbecome popular in amongstvisitors coming to the museum.This exhibit of the month hasbeen curetted by Soma Kiro(Assistant Curator).

Craft and Craftsmanship -Masks of the Dinajpur,Jalpaiguri and Koch Bihar dis-tricts of West Bengal are pre-pared by the craftsmen of Poliaand Deshi communities usingthe wood of Gamir. Use ofmask is strictly confined to themember of these communities.

The uniqueness of the masks isthe provision of slit openingsfor eyes below the paintedlower margin of the eyesinstead of the usual circularopening. One of the features ofthe Gamira mask is its fero-cious expression.

The Gamira masks consist

of Shiknidhal, Chamunda,Mashan Kali, Buri Bura, BaghMashan, masks of differentanimals like tiger, bear, etc.They are made of Gamir woodfor the mask is specially pre-ferred for the convenience ofcarving. Gamar Wood is theprincipal material of Gamiramask. The local craftsman pre-pares the mask by carvingwood with the help of irontools and produces the requiredshape of a specified mask.Sand paper is used forsmoothening the surface ofthe mask. Natural colors suchas Ash, Vermilion, white andsaffron colored clay and veg-etable color are used for color-ing the mask. The smooth fin-ishing of the mask indicates thecraftmanship of the maker.

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To let the urban youthexplore the lifestyle and

tradition of rural India, a teamof youngsters will travel toGujarat. The most impactfultrip is organised under anevent ‘Go Rurban’. The regis-trations for the same are goingonline. Go Rurban is a socialevent organized jointly byyouth organization AnshHappiness Society and EktaParishad.

Notably, it is the Seventhyouth camp under the event GoRurban organized with theobjective to know about the lifein rural environment. Foundermember of Ansh SocietyMohsin Khan said, "Till nowwe have done Go Rurbancamps in Madhya Pradesh butthis is the first time we aremoving out of State."

Application forms for theGo RURBAN Camp June 2019(Gujarat) are now open. GoRURBAN camps aims to bringyoung people closer to ruralIndia in order to generate newunderstandings and connec-tions - with ourselves, witheach other, and with nature;through a lifestyle that is trulyRURBAN. This camp will takeplace in rural parts of Gujaratfrom June 14 to 24.

Mohsin informed that thecamp will include interactionand living with the nomadicpastoral Maldhari community,participating in their nationalparliament and an interactionwith Gandhian thoughts at thebanks of Sabarmati River incelebration of the 150th birthanniversary of Kasturba andMahatma Gandhi.

The basic idea of this campis to explore the shortcomingsand highlights of both theurban and rural lifestyle.

Elaborating more, he said,“It is only through this explo-ration that we can build abridge between both the endsand can actually be the com-bination of both rural andurban, Rurban.”

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Electrical goods and sanitaryware over �1.5lakh were burgled from Viceroy Park soci-

ety under Shahpura police station area onThursday. Police said that the victim DineshSingh Bhadoria’s house was under constructionand electrical goods and sanitary ware were keptat the under construction house and when thevictim reached the house in the morning goodswere found burgled.

A complaint was lodged with the police stat-ing that part of house was razed and electricalgoods and sanitary ware was kept in theremaining part which was locked and he usedto visit for construction work. On Thursdaywhen he visited electrical goods and sanitaryware were found burgled.

The police said that as part of the investi-gation, CCTV cameras would be investigated.The neighbours have expressed ignorance overthe burglary. The locks were broken by the mis-creants.

Meanwhile electronic goods worth �45000were stolen from Priyanka Nagar under Koalrpolice station area on Thursday. The victimAmardeep Bhatnagar found that locks were bro-ken and electronic goods were found burgledwhen he visited house in the morning onThursday.

An LED TV set and electronic devices worth�45000 were burgled claimed the victim. Thehouse belongs to victim’s brother Sunil who livesin Raipur. The police have registered a caseunder sections 457 and 380 of the IPC and havestarted further investigation.

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Amidst the wave of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, BJP’s Organisational

Secretary VD Sharma succeeded inwresting the Khajuraho seat with a hugemargin of around 4,91,884.

He was seeking party ticket from atleast five seats and finally, in the last list,he was nominated from Khajuraho. Thecandidate VD Sharma had even vehe-ment opposition from within. The localparty leaders even burnt his effigies.

The former national general secretaryof Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad(ABVP), Sharma had tried taking apolitical plunge in assembly polls by con-testing election from Govindpura seat inBhopal.

After the party made it clear that itwas not planning to re-nominate the 86-year-old Gaur from Govindpura, thecrafty politician almost took on theentire BJP to make sure his daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur.

The logjam had continued for awhile after the ticket was offered toKrishna Gaur reportedly on the inter-vention of BJP president Amit Shah.

As the 2019 lok sabha polls approached, Sharma yet again was in the

hunt for a ticket, especially from thebacking of RSS with which he has strongbonding. Initially, Sharma, the formerhead of Nehru Yuva Kendra, had in thecontention from Morena, his home-town.

However, his plans hit a roadblockafter Narendra Singh Tomar who was fac-ing internal unrest in Gwalior, fromwhere he won in 2014, decided to switchhis seat and was named from Morena.Sharma then was pinning his hopes froma ticket from Gwalior but eventually lostout to Mayor Vivek Shejwalaker who alsohas strong bonding with the RSS.

Then Sharma pinned his hope for anomination from Bhopal where too hehad to face opposition from partymenwho dubbed him as an outsider.

BJP/RSS too backed out on his nom-ination after Congress party fielded vet-eran Digvijaya Singh from the seat.

In between Sharma’s name also didrounds for candidature in Vidisha, theRSS stronghold which had in the pastsent Brahmin MPs to parliament includ-ing late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Still luck did not favour Sharma whoeventually was named from Khajuraho.

Bhopal: The little artists of thecity showcased immense talentin a Hindi play Sanjhe Virse.The play was performed tomark the conclusion of a sum-mer camp for children insummer holidays.

The play Sanjha Virse wasstaged on the occasion of con-cluding the Bal NatyaWorkshop which was con-ducted for nearly a month. Inthe play, about 20 childrenfrom 18 years of age haveshown their acting skills.

The story of King of a Statewas presented by the schoolstudents. Ot is to be noted thatrhe workshop was organised inthe city by Natubundale, thefamous drama troupe ofBhopal. The play was directedby Krishnakant Verma andtheater actor, cinema and TVactor Ajay Pal, directed the play.

The scenario of this dramais written by Krishna KantVerma is ancient, but it isaccurate on the system oftoday's situation. In the drama,Murakra Raja, the king didsome tactics in the assembly ofministers and generals andtakes such decisions, therebycausing deep loss to the statebut not to the entire people,and the situation of humor iscreated by these decisions ofthe king.

But in the end, the wiseperson is aware of the mistakeof the wise person, and byreturning his wrong decisions,he declares the right and thedecisions of the people. Howcleverness and knowledgedefeated the cruelty. The playwas beautifully performed bythe students which was muchappreciated by the audience.The scenes and the acting skillsthat were learned during theworkshop were showcased bythe students splendidly. SR

Bhopal: Second edition of NewsLetter published by police Stateheadquarters CID was released byDGP VK Singh on Thursday at thestate police headquarters.

The second edition was pub-lished under the guidance ofAdditional Director CID RajivTandon.

The facts related to the crimesrelated to women and children,Narcotics, cyber crime etc. have beenpublished and the publication of thefactual information related to thejudicial penalization and disclosureof criminal incidents has been pub-lished.

DGP Singh appreciated the con-tent of the newsletter and wished forpublication of more such NewsLetters in future. On the occasion ofthe release, ADG Rajiv Tandon, IGD. Shrinivas Verma, Assistant Police

Inspector General, KiranlataKerketta and Mahaveer Mujaldeand Inspector Mukhtar Qureshiwere present. Meanwhile, summertraining camp would be inaugurat-

ed at Motilal Nehru Stadium byAdditional Director General ofPolice (DGP) Vijay Yadav at 6 in theevening on May 24 at Motilal Nehru Stadium. The school childrenof families residing in police coloniesalong with other school children ofnearby colonies will also participatein this summer training camp.

At the summer training camparound 600 children would attendthe camp. The camp which would beorganised for a month would witnessprofessional trainers who would beproviding training to the participants.

The summer camp moreemphasis would be given on sportsespecially for traditional sports likeVolleyball, hockey, kabaddi, handballand wrestling. Arrangements oftraining of 600 children have beenmade at the summer training camp.

SR

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Adaylong seminar on "How to DoResearch in English Literature"

was held at Sanchi University. The expert Vikas Jaodker of by

the Department of English ofHamidia College, Bhopal conductedthe seminar for the students ofEnglish Department.

Besides, Prof. Jaodker, talked on"How to choose a topic of research"for MA, M.Phil and Ph.D students,what is the difference betweenresearch dissertation and researchpaper, on career options after high-er education in English literature.

Professor Jaodker told studentshow many types of research papercan be presented. He suggested usingthe Modern Linguistic Approach towrite a thesis.

Pro. Jaodker told the studentshow the conceptualization should beunderstood and what the hypothesiscould be for any student's subject. Healso mentions various sources forresearch. He explained how poetry,novel, drama, essay etc. are the pri-mary sources for research in Englishliterature.

In reference to a research con-ducted by the famous English nov-

elist and journalist KamalaMarkandey, the university's researchstudents told how the research can becarried forward. He told the studentsabout the rules of the UGC madeagainst the quotes, anti-plagiarism(research theft) for research.

Navin Mehta, the University'sDepartment of Excellence andDepartment of English, gave vote ofthanks.

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C M Y K

C M Y K

Page 3: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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Both Madhya Pradesh andChhattisgarh that had wit-

nessed the end of 15-year-ruleof the BJP in the States, onceagain saw a jolt for Congress.

Out of 29 parliament seatsin Madhya Pradesh, the BJPcandidates were winning at 28seats while Nakul Nath , son ofCM Kamal Nath was the onlyone who was heading for a win.While in Chhattisgarh as well,BJP seemingly turned the tableson Congress despite a crushingdefeat in assembly polls as BJPcandidates were leading innine out of 11 seats.

In 2014, Congress was leftwith two seats while inChhattisgarh the grand oldparty had ended 2014 pollswith a single seat Durg.

The Congress party despitea reversal of losing streak inassembly poll is set for a mas-sive defeat in Madhya Pradeshas most of the regional satrapswere trailing by around noon.

Those prominent amongheading towards defeat includetwo-time Chief MinisterDigvijaya Singh, former unionminister Jyotiraditya Scindia,

former union minister KantillaBhuria, former Leader of oppo-sition in MP assembly AjaySingh and Rajya Sabha MPVivek Tankha and formerunion minister Arun Yadav.

Though the Congress wasmaking claims of winning atleast 22 seats but insiders wereclaiming that the party wasexpecting to enter double dig-its in Madhya Pradesh and theimminent results are com-pletely against expectations.

After the Congress hadwon 114 seats in assemblypolls in MP and formed thegovernment with allies, itexpected that the party couldenter into double digits in loksabha polls.

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A22-year-old youth diedwhile his friends escaped

with injuries after a jeep hittheir motorbikes near Berasiaunder Berasia police stationarea in the evening onWednesday.

Police said that the injuredwere rushed to nearby hospi-tal where one of the youthsdied while other survivedwith injuries. The deceasedwas identified as Kallu aliasBhagwan Singh while theyouth who escaped with

injuries was identified asLalchandra Singh and under-going treatment.

The deceased were on thesame bike and after shoppingthey were on their way toNazeerabad when their bikewas hit by speeding Jeep ataround 7 in the evening.

In the head on collisionimpact proved fatal for Kalluwhile Lalchandra is undergo-ing treatment at Hamidia hos-pital.

After the preliminaryinvestigation police have sentthe bodies have been sent for

post mortem and a case undersection 304 A of the IPC wasregistered against the errantdriver. Police are yet to ascer-tain details and have claimedto start search for theabsconding accused who stillremains missing and uniden-tified.

The deceased was residentof Nazeerabad and came toBerasia for shopping withLalchandra of Bheemkund.

Meanwhile a 17-year-oldgirl committed suicide byhanging with the ceiling ather house near Kamla Park

area under Shymala Hillspolice station area onWednesday.

According to police, thedeceased was found hangingand was rushed to a nearbyhospital where she wasdeclared dead. The deceasedwas frustrated from a youthDeepak who used to live inthe same building and whichwas claimed in suicide noterecovered by police. Thepolice have registered a caseunder section 174 of CrPCand have started further inves-tigation.

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Weather conditions in east-ern Madhya Pradesh

have soared to extreme levelswhile western Madhya Pradeshremained around the sametemperatures maintaining theweather conditions at bear-able levels on Thursday.

The state capital recordedlittle dip from the extremesrecorded two days ago. The daytemperature was recorded at43.1 degree Celsius while nighttemperature was recorded at26.6 degree Celsius.

Bhopal is likely to wit-nessed increased temperatureon Thursday and day temper-atures would be recordedaround 42 degree Celsius andnight temperatures would berecorded around 27 degreeCelsius.

The night temperatureswere recorded at higher levelsJabalpur, Raisen, Rajgarh andSatna recorded night tempera-ture at 30 degree Celsius,Tikamgarh, Chhindwara andDamoh recorded night tem-perature at 29 degree Celsius.Sidhi recorded night tempera-ture at 28.1 degree Celsius.

Warning of thundery activ-ities and speedy winds of speed30-40 km/ hr light rainfall hasbeen issued for Chambal divi-sion and Gwalior, Datai,Shivpuri, Chhatarpur andTikamgarh districts.

According to the warningfew regions would also witnesshot waves and areas which areprone for hot wave conditionsare Khargone, Khandwa,Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh, Damoh, Umaria and Sidhi dis- tricts in the next 24 hours.

Rewa, Sagar, Hoshangabad,Bhopal and Ujjain recorded sig-nificant rise in the temperatures.

Several places recordedrise in the night temperatureshave been recorded at severalplaces in the state.

Among the divisions inthe past 24 hours Gwalior divi-sions witnessed light rainfallwhile remaining divisions wit-nessed dry conditions. In thepast 24 hours Umaria,Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh,Damoh and Khargone witnessed hot waves conditions.

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As several Congress partyregional satraps in

Madhya Pradesh lost the LokSabha elections in the State,the most surprising amongthem was Jyotiraditya Scindia,former union minister and theAICC general secretary incharge of UP (West).

Scindia is a tall figure inMadhya Pradesh Congressand a strong contender for thepost of Chief Minister in theState. With his claims, thehigh command was delayed intaking decision for the nameof Chief Minister inDecember 2018.

The Guna MP was trailingagainst BJP’s KP Yadav withover 1,24,750 votes till latestreports came in. Yadav is aformer close aide of Scindia

who also worked with him asMP-representative in the past.

Scindia who guided theCongress to thumping win inGwalior-Chambal region in2018 assembly polls was seenas a giant to his former aideKP Yadav in Lok Sabha polls.Having denied ticket inassembly polls, Yadav hadswitched over to the BJP in2018. When he was fieldedagainst Scindia, many believedthat he would not be a strongopponent to Scindia, theGwalior royal family scionwho had won the last polls byover 1.20 lakh votes againstBJP’s Jaibhan Singh Pawiaya.

Scindia has representedGuna since 2002 after demiseof his father late Madhav RaoScindia who also representedthis Scindia bastion four timesbesides Vijaya Raje Scindia

who was also an MP fromGuna half a dozen timesunder various banners.

However, the party was ofthe view that Scindia shouldcontest from elsewhere in2019 but the former unionminister had the last say. Healso declined party offers tofield his wife Priyadarshi Rajefrom anywhere in MadhyaPradesh.

Scindia, besides nowChief Minister Kamal Nathwas the only MP in MadhyaPradesh who had survived amassive Modi wave in 2014 asBJP had swept the polls win-ning 27 out of 29 seats. Scindiahowever had remained limit-ed to his region during cam-paigning and also had left forabroad once the polling wasdone in the Gwlaior-Chambalregion.

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Shahpura police have bookeda Jhansi based married

woman for taking valuablesworth lakhs of rupees; case wasregistered after complaint waslodged by her husband.

Police have booked GarimaGupta after her husband andvictim Varun Gupta lodged acomplaint against her of threat-ening of life and criminalbreach of trust.

The victim lodged com-plaint stating that he marriedto the victim on May 5, 2016and later due to disputesbetween the two they contin-ue to have fights. On August 21,2018 she left to celebrateRakshabandhan along with sil-ver jewelry, one diamond stud-

ded finger ring, one gold chainand other valuables worth lakhsof rupees.

The victim tried to per-suade her to return but Garimarefused and few days ago whenhe had gone to bring her backfather and uncle of Garimathreatened her of life and laterthey used to call him anddemand �1.5 crores or theywould lodged complaint of

dowry against victim afterwhich he lodged a complaintwith the police.

Based on the complaintafter the preliminary investi-gation, police have registered acase under section 506,507,406and 34 of the IPC and startedfurther investigation. The vic-tim works as accountant withRural Development Authority.

During the investigationpolice found that the coupleused to have fight over issuesof suspicion over character.They used to suspect eachother and which resulted in thefights and later woman decid-ed to leave house with the valu-ables. The victim has demand-ed gold which his family hadgifted her in the marriage butwoman refused.

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Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakurof BJP defeated Congress

nominee Digvijaya Singh witharound 3,64,324 votes in theBhopal Lok Sabha elections,probably due to the polariza-tion of votes.

Bhopal candidate hadtaken a lead against Congressparty veteran in initial count-ing and the lead continued tillend.

Thakur who managed topolarised atmosphere inBhopal, a saffron hub since1989, took an early lead againstSingh after the counting begunin the state capital. However,things did not look too bright

for the two-time MadhyaPradesh Chief MinisterDigvijay Singh as the Sanyasan,an accused in 2008 Malegaonblast case, raced past him andtook a lead of over 69,000votes by around noon.

Contesting her maidenpoll, Thakur a former ABVP

activist was considered a nomatch for Singh but she gainedground as the campaigningprogressed and she raked upsentiments with her stingingtakes.

Though Thakur did nothave much time to undertakecampaigning properly, she didturned heads with her takes onHemant Karkare, BabriDemolition and her custodialtorture. The 49-year-old hadproudly boasted her role inBabri demolition of 1993.

She had raked up a majortrouble while claiming thatlate Maharashtra ATS chiefHemant Karkare had torturedher immensely in custody inorder to frame her in Malegoan

blast case. The firebrand sad-hvi had even claimed Karkarewas killed by the terrorists dueto her curse.

Singh, who had his ownpast to counter in this poll, wasbattling his pro-minority imageand was seen in his religiousavtar throughout the cam-paigning.

He even got hundreds ofseers under Computer Baba, acontroversial saint of MadhyaPradesh, to do a yagna androadshow for him in Bhopal.However, Singh could not wingovernment staffers whoexpressed widespread resent-ment against him over anti-employee policies of his gov-ernment prior to 2003.

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Anew leader, first-timerShankar Lalwani wrested

the Indore parliamentary seatwith around 4,91,884 votes.

Lalwani had replacedeight-time MP and lok sabhaspeaker Sumitra Mahajan whohad voluntarily stepped awayfrom the race of ticket.

The former IndoreDevelopment Authority chair-man Lalwani was leading overhis nearest rival—PankajSanghvi of Congress by over5.37 lakh votes and was set fora record win. He is perhapsamong the highest margin vic-tory among BJP candidatenationally.

Lalwani has even brokenMahajan’s record already who

has won by 4.66 lakh votes inyear 2014. His win ushers in afresh leadership in Indore BJPwhich till now was bifurcatedbetween Mahajan and BJPnational general secretaryKailash Vijayvargiya for years.

Meanwhile, Lalwani ini-tially was not considered a win-ning candidate with her lack ofexperience against Congress’sPankaj Sanghvi who had beenin mainstream politics fordecades and even had lost nar-rowly against Mahajan in 1998.

It was also uncertain howmuch support the rookie candraw from Mahajan andVijayvargiya camps. Mahajan’spossible inclination was impor-tant for Lalwani, a prominentSindhi community leader, asMahajan holds sizable sway on

Marathi community which isan important faction of votersin Indore.

However, it seems a strongModi wave saw Lalwanithrough without any troublewhatsoever. Lalwani wasamong those who had went tomeet Mahajan after she hadannounced not to contest loksabha poll.

Mahajan had been an MPin Indore since 1989 when shedefeated former Chief MinisterPrakash Chandra Sethi.

An election rally of PMNarendra Modi in favour ofLalwani at Indore seems tohave done the trick for himwhile Priyanka Gandhi’sthough drew sizable crowd inthe city but failed to turn thecrowd into votes.

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Page 4: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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Baijayant Jay Panda, whohad been ejected from the

BJD for his challenge to NaveenPatnaik’s leadership, was a lead-ing political figure who wasshouting from rooftops thatOdisha was in for a “change” ofregime in this election.

Panda, whose family-owned OTV channel, wentfull blast against the BJD andin favour of the BJP, joined thesaffron party and became itsnational vice-president andalso its candidate for theKendrapada Lok Sabha seat.

He had expected that hewould register an easy winriding the Modi wave in the

wake of the Pulwama-Balakotepisode.

Prime Minister NarendraModi chose Kendrapada as hiscampaigning venue on the lastday of his Odisha visit. Andhere, Modi had predicted theend of the BJD rule in the Statemaking a statement in a raised

voice, “Naveenbabu, aap jarahe ho” meaning “You aregoing out of power”. AndBaijayant Panda, who was pre-sent, had a hearty laugh cher-ishing that his earlier call for achange in power was almostachieved.

Panda’s followers gloatedwhen the BJD anounced itsRajya Sabha member and cinestar Anubhav Mohanty as thecontestant against Panda sincethey thought Mohanty was amere “film entertainer” and nomatch for an “intellectual JayPanda.” But the Naveen magiccut Panda to his size whenMohanty had an almost unas-sailable lead of votes indicatinghis defeat

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Foul-mouth politicianDamodar Rout has

been taught a lesson byNaveen Patnaik, whowanted the former torealise that he is a zerowithout the BJD tag.

Patnaik’s game result-ed in a victory for Rout’sson Sambit Routray asthe BJD candidate for theParadip Assembly seat,from where Rout had won in2014 on a BJD ticket.

And Rout, who joined theBJP after being thrown out ofthe BJD for his series of anti-Naveen Patnaik remarks, washumbled as the saffron partynominee in Paradip’s neigh-bouring constituency Erasama-Balikuda.

His BJD rivalRaghunandan Das, who hadcome to the BJD fold after quit-ting the BJP on the eve of theelections, defeated him.

Interestingly, the “know-all” Damodar Rout had beeninsisting in his prediction thatOdisha was going to have ahung Assembly this time.

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How the split voting for theBJD for the State and the

BJP for the Centre workedsignificantly was, for an exam-ple, evident from theBhubaneswar Lok Sabha con-stituency, where BJP candi-date Aparajita Sarangi led overher BJD rival Arup Patnaik.

The dual voting proppedup Sarangi although the BJPcame a cropper in all the sevenAssembly segments under the

Parliamentary constituency.While the BJD candidates werein the lead in as many as six ofthe Assembly areas,Bhubaneswar Central,Bhubaneswar North, Ekamra,Jayadev, Khordha and Begunia,the Congress’s Suresh Routraywas leading in Jatni.

Sarangi had campaignedfor her candidature quite earlyeven before the declaration ofthe election schedule. Muchlater, the BJD named its can-didate for the LS seat.

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Even as the Congress lost itsmain Opposition party sta-

tus in the Assembly by not eventouching a figure beyond 10 asagainst 16 in 2014, the PradeshCongress Committee presi-dent Niranjan Patnaik was los-ing both the seats he contest-ed for the State legislature as

per the latestreports available.

Patnaik waslagging behind inGhasipura in hisnative Keonjhardistrict by a hugemargin fromMinister BadriNarayan Patra.He was also trail-ing in his fightagainst MinisterPrafulla Samal inBhandaripokhari

in Bhadrak district.Besides, Patnaik’s son

Navjyoti Patnaik lost the pollsin the Baleswar Lok Sabha seatfinishing a poor third.

That the days of NiranjanPatnaik as the PCC chief arenumbered is already evidentfrom a section of senior partyleaders questioning his stew-ardship since Wednesday.

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It was all about dhol andnagaras (Traditional drums)

outside the Jamshedpur Co-operative College campuswhere counting was under-way. Though JMM supporterserupted in premature celebra-tions after postal ballot count-ing showed mahagathbandhancandidate Champai Soren lead-ing but soon it started chang-ing as the counting movedahead. The jubilant moodturned sombre after 10 am asBJP’s Bidyut Baran Mahto start-ed edging out his rival on thelead front.

Celebrations sparked outon Thursday across the SteelCity as the BJP retained theJamshedpur parliamentary seatwith record numbers of vote.

The mood at the party’scamp near the strong room atJamshedpur Co-operativeCollege was upbeat soon aftercounting started at 8 am.Supporters smeared with gulaldisplayed V-signs as the count-ing process started.

Enthusiastic party cadresburst crackers amidst the beatof dhol soon after the BJP can-didate Bidyut Baran Mahotcaught an early lead.

Mahto had gained earlylead, which infused enthusiasmamong the party workers.Drum players played the vic-tory tune after announcementsof each round of countingexercise.

Leaders and supporters ofJMM too had constructedmakeshifts tent, however, itwas the tent of BJP that wasbrimming with joy with everypassing rounds. After theannouncements of every roundresults, it was the BJP camp ofsupporters that rejoiced injubilation.

As the day went ahead thesupporters of JVM and JMMstarted vanishing while thecrowd swelled at the saffronbrigade. By the 12 round theBJP candidate had alreadytaken a lead of more than one

lakh.From the very first day, we

were confident of our victoryand we feel relieved to see ourcandidate heading towards aneasy win. We are happy that theparty has retained theJamshedpur parliamentary seat.Every party worker had toiledand they deserve to be lauded.Modi’s charismatic personalityand his vision of developmenttoo favoured our candidate,voters has shown faith in hisleadership,” said Dinesh Kumar,president, district BJP.

BJP office at Sakchi wasalso abuzz with activities sincethe counting exercise com-menced in the morning. Afterthe results were finallyannounced the party workerscame out on the roads andburst crackers and distributedsweets.

BJP flags ruled areas ofJugsalai, Burmamines, Sakchi,Bistupur and Sidhgora withparty workers distributingsweets and bursting crackers.

“It is the victory of ournation. We are more thanhappy that the party hasretained the Jamshedpur seat.The victory of Bidyut indicatesthat people have faith in BJP.Moreover, Champai was a weakcandidate, the voters had nochoice but show him thedoors,” said Satbir Singh Somu,a senior leader of youth wingof BJP.

On the other hand silenceprevailed at the camp of JMMafter the defeat. Party leaderswere sad with the results.

“I cannot comment as whatled to our defeat. Our seniorleaders will sit and review theperformance of the party in theelections. However, we doaccept that Modi factor playedan important role,” said a dis-trict leader of JMM.

The roads remained almostdeserted while parking slots inmarkets also wore the somelook. Footfall at business estab-lishments was also affected aspoll results kept most peopleindoors.

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The “Modi factor” workedwell for the Bharatiya Janata

Party in Jatland-Haryana. Thesaffron party managed tosweep the northern state, win-ning all 10 Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP, which was con-testing on its own on all 10 par-liamentary seats in Haryana,registered a rise of three seatsin its tally from last generalelections 2014. Its main chal-lenger Congress failed to retainits stronghold –Rohtak, whichwitnessed a nail-biting finish.

The ballot battle inHaryana was multi-corneredthis time with the BJP, theCongress, the Indian NationalLok Dal, Jannayak Janta Party-Aam Aadmi Party alliance andBahujan Samaj Party-LoktantraSuraksha Party combine in thefray.

Riding high on a “Modi-for-PM” and nationalismplank, the BJP swept Haryanaas bigwigs of its main chal-lenger – Congress-tastedhumiliating defeat. TheCongress’ heavyweights whosuffered defeat included two-time former Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda, his

son Deepender Singh Hooda,Haryana state party chiefAshok Tanwar, Rajya SabhaMP Kumari Selja, four-timeMP Avtar Singh Bhadana.

Other political players inthe fray including INLD, JJP-AAP alliance and BSP-LSPfailed to make any majorimpact in the electoral contestin the state. The poll battleremained confined to BJP VsCongress except on one i.eHisar, where JJP leader andoutgoing MP DushyantChautala finished at secondplace.

In general elections, theanti-incumbency factor failedto pierce through the “Modifactor” as the BJP successfullyplayed the nationalism cardwith continuous references toPulwama terror attack and theBalakot air strikes during itscampaigning in Haryana. Onthe other hand, the Congress,which targeted the BJP overnon-fulfilled poll promises andalleged corruption in the Rafalefighter jet deal, failed to impressthe voters in northern state ofHaryana, which is ruled by BJPGovernment under ChiefMinister Manohar Lal Khattar.

As the BJP pulled out allstops on the campaign trail to

protect its 2014 tally, the “Modifactor” also compensated forthe anti-incumbency and alle-gations of lack of personalconnect faced by the HaryanaBJP MPs, who sought votes inthe name of Prime Ministerand his brand of nationalism.

In the last parliamentaryelections also, the BJP whileriding high on “Modi wave”and with the help of severalpolitical turncoats had man-aged to win seven of eight LokSabha seats the party contest-ed in the state. Its ally HaryanaJanhit Congress (BL) at thattime could not win a single seatlosing two it had contested,while INLD had won two seatsand Congress had won one seati.e Rohtak.

For the 2019 parliamentarypolls, the BJP keen to strength-en its grip on the state hadretained its five MPs, fieldedfour new faces and one promi-nent turncoat candidate. TheCongress, which was trying toput a formidable fight andmake a comeback in Haryanaahead of State Assembly pollsin October, had placed its beton tried and trusted heavy-weights.

Both national parties hadalso brought out their bigwigs

in the run-up to the generalelections, with PM NarendraModi, BJP chief Amit Shah,Congress president RahulGandhi, Congress general sec-retary Priyanka Gandhi hold-ing several rallies featuringblistering personal attacks.

The state had witnessedabout 70 percent voter turnouton May 12 with Sirsa parlia-mentary constituency(reserved) recording the max-imum voting with 73.48 per-centage and Karnal recordingthe lowest with 64.68 percent-age.

As many as 223 candi-dates including 11 women con-tested on 10 Lok Sabha seats,which went to polling on May12 in the state.

As far as contest on parlia-mentary seats is concerned,two –time former ChiefMinister Bhupinder SinghHooda was among the heavy-weights ending up on the los-ing side in the general elections.

Hooda, who is seen asCongress’ most prominent Jatface in Haryana was defeatedby BJP’s MP Ramesh ChanderKaushik in Sonipat parliamen-tary seat by over 1.6 lakh votes.

With the embarrassingdefeat, Hooda’s aspirations to

become Congress’ ChiefMinisterial face in Haryanaassembly polls due to be heldlater this year seems implausi-ble now.

The former ChiefMinister’s son DeependerSingh Hooda lost with a mar-gin of about 2600 votes againstBJP’s nominee Arvind KumarSharma.

Another prominentCongress leader, Rajya SabhaMP Kumari Selja lost electionin Ambala Lok Sabha seat toBJP MP Rattan Lal Kataria bya margin of 3.4 lakh votes.

Two Union Ministers—Krishan Pal Gurjar and RaoInderjit Singh—managed toretain their parliamentary seats.Krishan Pal Gurjar won fromFaridabad seat against his near-est rival Congress’ Avtar SinghBhadana by a huge margin ofover 6.15 lakh votes. KrishanPal had won by a margin ofover 4.6 lakh votes against thesame rival Avtar SinghBhadana of Congress in 2014Lok Sabha polls.

Rao Inderjit Singh regis-tered third consecutive victoryon Gurgaon Lok Sabha seatwith a margin of over 3.8 lakhvotes against Congress’ nomi-nee Capt Ajay Singh Yadav.

In Bhiwani-Mahendragarhparliamentary seat, BJP MPDharambir Singh trouncedCongress’ Shruti Choudhry forthe second consecutive time.Dharambir won the seat by amargin of over 4.3 lakh votesagainst Shruti Choudhry, whois the daughter of CLP leaderKiran Choudhry and grand-daughter of former ChiefMinister late Bansi Lal.

Haryana Congress chiefAshok Tanwar faced secondconsecutive defeat in generalelections on Sirsa Lok Sabhaseat. BJP’s Sunita Duggaldefeated Tanwar by a margin ofover 3 lakh votes. In ChiefMinister’s hometurf- Karnal,his confidant and politicalgreenhorn Sanjay Bhatia regis-tered his victory in style record-ing the highest winning mar-gin of over 6.5 lakh votes in thestate. Recording an emphaticvictory, Bhatia defeatedCongress’ MLA and formerSpeaker Kuldeep Sharma onKarnal parliamentary seat. InKurukshetra, the land ofMahabharata, the BJP’s NayabSaini, Minister of State inHaryana Cabinet trounced hisclosest rival Nirmal Singh ofCongress with a margin of 3.8lakh votes.

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Modi wave gave a sweepingvictory to the BJP in

Dhanbad and NDA in GiridihLok Sabha constituencies.Giving a clean sweep BJP’s sit-ting MP, Dhanbad PN Singhwon the poll battle with a mar-gin of over 3,17,691 lakhs votesby defeating Congress candi-date Kriti Azad.

There were 20 candidatesin the poll fray and Singh got5,67,759 votes while Azad got2,50,068 votes, informed dis-trict electoral official of theconstituency.

While NDA candidateChandra Prakash Choudharyfrom AJSU defeated JharkhandMukti Morcha candidateJagarnath Mahato by 2,48,347votes. There were 15 candidatesin the poll fray and Choudharygot 6,48,277 votes whileJagarnath Mahato 3,99,930votes, informed KN Jha DCBokaro cum electoral officerGiridih Constituency.

After accepting the greet-ing Singh said people ofDhanbad constituency loveshim. “They are satisfied withmy work and progress of theconstituency. People chose meas MLA in 1995 than 2000,

2005; later as MP in 2009 in2014 and again in 2019. Nowkeeping the promises which Iwas made with my people dur-ing the campaign would be inmy priorities,” he said.

‘I won the poll battle but allthe credits goes to NarendraModi. Nobody has expectedquite such an emphatic victo-ry of BJP across the country.Inevitably people have givenModi a free hand again to dowhatever he wants for holisticdevelopment at a nationallevel,” Singh added.

There is one more thing,“People want a strong PrimeMinister to represent our coun-try so they voted for BJP. I hopein this new tenure Modi ledgovernment will definitelybring a radical change acrossthe country and it will fetchprosperity with happiness”,Singh added. On his massivevictory, Chandra PrakashChoudhary said, first of all, Iwant to give thanks to all theresidents of GiridihConstituency, who extendedtheir blessings. “Though, I wonthe election but this is the vic-tory of the people; people arehappy with Modi's work andgiven a massive mandate to theNDA,” added Choudhary.

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An Inter University YouthFestival will be organized

by Birsa AgriculturalUniversity (BAU) from May 25to May 28. Over 300 studentswill participate in the Festivalfrom eight universities of theState.

As many as 40 studentseach from Ranchi University,Vinoba Bhave University,Hazaribag, Binod BihariMahto Koyalanchal University,Dhanbad, Kolhan University,Chaibasa, Sido Kanhu MurmuUniversity, Dumka, Nilamber-Pitamber University,Medininagar, BAU andNational University of Studyand Research in Law, Ranchiwill show their creative talentin 19 events of music, dance,literary, theatre and fine artsgroups at the four-day event.Most of the teams along withtheir team managers will reachthe Kanke venue of the youthfest on May 24.

BAU, Vice Chancellor(VC) Parvinder Kaushal saidthe festival will not be just anassemblage of students fromdifferent universities of theState who will compete underone roof but also a platform forsharing ideas and thoughts,promoting national integrationand communal harmony, whilemanifesting a zest of friendli-ness. This will be a uniqueforum for youths for express-ing their creativity, knowledgeand talent where State’s cultural

heritage will came alive incolourful vivacity.

The event will be formal-ly inaugurated by GovernorDroupadi Murmu on May 25.The inaugural function andvaledictory function will beheld in Ranchi AgriculturalCollege Auditorium while 19events will take place at 7venues on the campus just asRanchi Veterinary CollegeAuditorium, AgriculturalEngineering Department,Lecture Hall, RACExamination Hall, Model ClassRoom, RAC Botany Dept,lawn of Damodar InternationalGuest House and RACAuditorium. The eventsinclude light vocal (solo), quiz,skit, on the spot painting,western vocal, elocution,mime, collage making, groupsong (patriotic and regional),debate, mimicry, poster mak-ing, rangoli, classical dance(solo), extempore, one act play,clay modeling, cartooning andfolk dance

Director Students’ Welfareof BAU, MS Yadava informedthat accommodation of boyshas been arranged at newbuilding of AgriculturalEngineering College (AEC)while girls will stay at KrishakBhawan. Team managers willstay at International familyHostel. Food for all partici-pants will be at AEC. All teamshave been asked to arrive at theKanke venue of the youth festby the afternoon of May 24.

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Page 5: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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���%&%�'�(%�'��()&�#� ��*%+��� &)�,-)�Mamata Banerjee: The most vocaland combative, TMC chief andWest Bengal Chief Minister nursedPrime Ministerial ambitions;launched a blistering campaignagainst Narendra Modi and wasaverse to backing Congress presi-dent Rahul Gandhi as the UPA's PMcandidate. Given her completesupremacy in the state, even punditswere skeptical about the BJP'schances. However, the saffronbrigade stunned everyone by storm-ing her citadel. Having failed to stopthe BJP from making strong inroadsin a big way into her bastion, she willhave to rethink her strategy todefend her turf in the 2021Assembly polls.

Akhilesh Yadav: Having takingover the mantle of SP from hisfather and veteran politicianMulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh'splans to play a major role at the cen-tre - even burying the over-two-decades-old hatchet with BSPsupreme Mayawati in the process -have come to a naught with theparty faring badly in its strongholdUttar Pradesh. Though the youngleader never openly aired his polit-ical ambitions, he was eyeing a king-maker's role. He vigorously cam-paigned for the 'Mahagathbandhan'to put up a united front against theBJP. Facing a drubbing for the sec-ond consecutive time in the LokSabha polls, the SP will have to rein-vent itself to remain relevant in fastchanging political dynamics.

Mayawati: The BSP supremo andformer chief minister of UP hadmade no bones about her PrimeMinisterial ambitions and hence, didnot even allow Congress to join the'Mahagathbandhan' to ensure shehad a larger share of seats to fight inUP. She also gave no-holds-barredspeeches against Modi during thecampaign but the frontal attackfailed to spin magic in her favour.Her caste combinations failed totrump Modi's charisma. Alongwith the SP, the BSP also fared badly.The stunning reversal brushingaside caste and other related factorswill make it all the more necessaryfor Mayawati to present a newimage for her party to survive in themost politically-crucial State.

K Chandrashekar Rao: Havingswept the Telangana state assemblypolls last year, the TRS chief andchief minister was nursing ambitionsto project himself at the nationalstage. He met several leaders includ-ing DMK chief M K stalin and TMCchief Mamata Banerjee. However, asRao was busy with his efforts to forgea federal front, the BJP breached hisfortress to make a debut from theState in the Lok Sabha. Even theCongress managed to make inroadsin the State. Though Rao played themost important role in the creationof Telangana, the voters, however,preferred to vote for Modi at thenational level.

HD Deve Gowda: The formerPrime Minister and JD(S) chief hasa lot on his plate now after his partywhich in coalition with the Congressis running Karnataka with his sonH D Kumaraswamy as the chiefminister could not withstand theModi wave. Deve Gowda was con-sidered to be one of the king mak-ers in case of fractured mandate dueto his seniority and stature. Trailingin the electoral battle till last trendscame in, Deve Gowda like otheraspirants Akhilesh, Mayawati andPawar is now on a very weak wick-et to play a role at the state andnational level. Coming days will seethe JD(S) chief definitely takingstock where his electoral strategyfailed even as the BJP's win couldimpact the survival of his son's gov-ernment too in the State.

N Chandrababu Naidu: Ahead ofthe results, Andhra Pradesh chiefminister and TDP chief Naidu wasthe most active in trying to forge anOpposition alliance in case theNDA did not get past the post.Besides Mamata, he had been themost critical of Modi. He must beruing his decision to quit the NDA.Despite his political acumen, hecould not decipher the public moodwith Jaganmohan Reddy's YSRCongress Party sweeping the pollsin the state. TDP has been almostwiped out from the Lok Sabha toodealing a massive blow to his polit-ical clout. Naidu's problems couldcompound in the coming days ifJagan join hands with the NDA.

Sharad Pawar: The Maratha strong-man and NCP chief, rated to be oneof the most astute and shrewdpoliticians of the country, was a PMcandidate even as he sought to playthe mentor's role in bringing togeth-er the opposition camp to face theBJP. But the Modi juggernaut, withthe Shiv Sena, simply brushed asideany challenge posed by the NCPalong with the Congress. Pawar'sclout nationally has taken a severebeating. The NCP has alreadyblamed the Congress for not per-forming upto expectations.

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Congress' young turks failedto deliver, while those from

the BJP rode on the Modiwave to register win in thehigh-voltage Lok Sabha polls.

Sitting Congress MPs —Jyotiraditya Scindia, SushmitaDev and former UnionMinister Jitin Prasada, MilindDeora, who all are in the closecircle of party chief RahulGandhi, lost badly. They hadbeen the most vocal insideand outside the Parliament onevery issue.

On the other hand, sittingBJP MPs Anurag Thakur,Poonam Mahajan, DushyantSingh and first timer TejaswiSurya registered win from theirrespective Parliamentary con-stituencies.

Amongst the losers, thebiggest one is JyotiradityaScindia, who was seeking hisfifth term from his family bas-tion Guna Lok Sabha seat. Helost to BJP's Krishna Pal Singh.Prior to Jyotiraditya, his fatherMadhavrao Scindia, the erst-while titular ruler of Gwalior,had won the seat in the 1999elections. Madhavrao died in2001 and since then JyotridityaScindia has represented theseat. In 2014, he was among theonly two leaders from MPwho were able to hold on to hisseat.

Another surprise loss wasMahila Congress PresidentSushmita Dev, who lost toBJP's young gun Rajdeep Royfrom the most high-profileSilchar Lok Sabha seat ofAssam. Both Rahul andPriyanka Gandhi campaignedfor her. Sushmita's father lateSantosh Mohan Dev, wonSilchar seat five times. BothJitin Prasada and Milind Deorawho's father Jitendra Prasadaand Murli Deora, , too lost.

Rajasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot's son Vaibhav lostin Jodhpur to BJP's GajendraSingh Shekhawat. InRajasthan's Barmer, ManvendraSingh, son of Jaswant Singh,founding member of BJP lost byover 3.2 lakh votes. Manvendra

was contesting on a Congressticket. Ajit Pawar's son Parth,and Shankarrao Chavan's sonAshok Chavan too lost inMaharashtra to BJP candidates.

On other hand, AnuragThakur retained Hamirpur LokSabha seat alongwith heranother party colleague PunamMahajan in North Mumbai.While Thakur is son of formerCM of Himachal Pradesh Prem

Dhumal, Punam is daughter oflate BJP's strategist PramodMahajan.

Another big win registeredwas by Tejasvi Surya, BJP'syoungest candidate fromBangalore South, againstCongress heavyweight BKHariprasad.

Former Rajasthan chiefminister Vasundhara Raje'sson Dushyant Singh too

emerged victorious from theJhalawar-Baran Lok Sabha seatwho defeated his Congressrival Pramod Sharma. Sharma,a BJP rebel, had joined theCongress ahead of the LokSabha election and contestedthe polls for the first time. Rajehad represented the seat for fiveterms from 1989 to 2004 afterwhich her son was electedfrom the seat.

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What's common for SheilaDikshit (Delhi),

Bhupinder Singh Hooda(Haryana), Harish Rawat(Uttarakhand), DigvijayaSingh (Madhya Pradesh),Ashok Chavan and SushilKumar Shinde (both fromMaharashtra), Mukul MSangama (Meghalaya), NabamTuki (Arunanchal Pradesh)and Veerappa Moily(Karnataka)? They are allCongress stalwarts and formerChief Ministers. And theyhave all bit the dust in the LokSabha Election 2019.

Dikshit, who is CongressDelhi Chief and the only partyveteran having donned theChief Ministers' cap thricefrom Delhi (from 1998 to2013), lost to her rival and cityBJP chief Manoj Tiwari fromNorth East Delhi seat whileMoily (former Karnataka ChiefMinister) was defeated by BJP'sB N Bache Gowda inChikkaballapur, a Congressstronghold. Moily, a formerUnion Minister, was the jointcandidate of the ruling

Congress-JD(S) coalition. Hewas first elected from Karkalain Udupi district as an MLA in1992. He won from there sixconsecutive times.

Two-time ArunanchalPradesh Chief Minister NabamTuki lost to Union Minister ofState for Home Kiren Rijiju ofthe BJP. He has been seeking athird term from the State's WestParliamentary constituency. Forhis part, former MaharashtraChief Minister and Congresscandidate Ashok Chavan lost toPratap Chikhlikar of BJP inNanded Lok Sabha seat.

In Uttarakhand, ex-ChiefMinister and Congress leaderHarish Rawat faced a humili-ating loss to BJP's State chiefAjay Bhatt in the Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar con-stituency. The BJP swept all theseats in the Hill State.

In Madhya Pradesh'sBhopal, Congress leaderDigvijaya Singh suffered acrushing defeat at the hands ofBJP newcomer and controver-sial leader Sadhvi Pragya SinghThakur, who won the high-profile Bhopal seat. TheMalegaon blast accused had

earned a public reprimandfrom none other than PrimeMinister Narendera Modihimself for her controversialremarks against MahtamaGandhi.

Yet another CM to havelost in the hustings is formerUnion Home Minister andMaharashtra CM SushilkumarShinde, who was defeated byLingayat Swami from SolapurLok Sabha seat.

In neighbouring Haryana,former Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda, asitting MLA from Rohtak, wasdefeated in Sonipat which wasretained by sitting BJP MPRamesh Chander Kaushik.

Another former CongressChief Minister who foundhimself in the list of losers wasMukul M. Sangma. A formerChief Minister of Meghalaya,Sangma is the current Leaderof Opposition in the StateLegislative Assembly. TheCongress candidate from Turalost to National People's Party(NPP) candidate AgathaSangma, a veteran politicianand former Lok Sabha Speakerlate PA Sangma's daughter.

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Amid a poll pitch againstparivarvad by the BJP, the

political dynasts had a mixedfate during the Parliamentarypolls. While some politicalfamilies have managed tosecure their bastions, others likeCongress president RahulGandhi lost their prized seats.

While former UPA chair-person Sonia Gandhi is pro-jected to win in Rae Bareli, herson Rahul lost out to BJP'sSmriti Irani in his so calledpocketborough Amethi. Rahulhas already conceded defeatagainst Irani and congratulat-ed her.

However, the Congresspresident is all set for a com-fortable victory in Wayanadconstituency of Kerala wherehe is leading by over 4 lakhvotes.

The other mother-son duofrom the Gandhi family —Maneka and Varun — who arecontesting on BJP tickets fromSultanpur and Pilibhit respec-tively are heading towards a vic-tory in their respective con-

stituencies. Union MinisterManeka Gandhi who wasengaged in a see-saw battle inSultanpur eventually wondefeating BSP's ChandraBhadra Singh "Sonu".

In the Samajwadi Party,patriarch Mulayam SinghYadav led in Mainpuri whileAkhilesh looked comfortable towin in Azamgarh.

However, Akhilesh Yadav'swife Dimple Yadav was trailingin Kannauj constituency andthat could be bad news for theYadav clan.

As per the available trends,

the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) —a constituent of the BSP-SP led'mahagathbandhan' is project-ed for a mixed outcome. WhileRLD chief Ajit Singh is movingahead in Muzaffarnagar, his sonand party vice-president JayantChaudhary is trailing fromBaghpat.

In Haryana, former StateChief Minister BhupinderSingh Hooda is trailing inSonipat. Bhupinder, a sittingMLA from Rohtak districtwho contested the Lok Sabhapolls after a gap of 14 years, wasbehind sitting MP Ramesh

Chander Kaushik.The performance of

Bhupinder Hooda, who haddefeated former deputy PrimeMinister Devi Lal from theRohtak LS seat earlier, is amajor setback for the Congress.

However, Bhupinder's sonDeepender Hooda is engagedin a sea-saw battle in Rohtak,where fortunes are fluctuatingbetween Deepender and hisnearest BJP rival ArvindSharma as the figures arechanging with each round ofcounting.

Down South, former PrimeMinister and JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda was trailing inTumkur against BJP's G SBasavaraj. His grandson andChief Minister H DKumaraswamy's son Nikhilwas also trailing against inde-pendent candidate- SumalathaAmbareesh, supported by theBJP, in the bitterly foughtMandya constituency.

However, Gowda's othergrandson Prajwal Revanna,son of minister H D Revanna,is leading in Hassan against AManju of the BJP.

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BJP chief Amit Shah's game-plan of targeting over 50 per

cent vote share has succeeded inover 15 States. Comparatively,the Congress managed to dothat in just Puducherry, whereit recorded about 57 per cent.

As per the ElectionCommission's preliminary esti-mates, the BJP has got more thanhalf of the total votes polled. AndBJP chief Amit Shah gave thesestatistics, saying the partycrossed the 50 per cent voteshare mark in 17 States.

It bagged 69 per cent votesin Himachal Pradesh, 62 percent in Gujarat, 60 per cent inUttarakhand, 59 per cent inRajasthan, 58 per cent inMadhya Pradesh, 57 per cent inHaryana, 57 per cent in Delhi,57.7 percent in Arunachal

Pradesh, 51.5 per cent inKarnataka, 51 per cent in UP,51.7 per cent in Goa, 51 per centin Jharkhand and 50.5 per centin Chandigarh among others.

It was Shah's strategy to havean eye over 50 per cent voteshare to trump any caste politics,played by the Oppositionalliances. Of the total 90 crorevoters, the BJP was eying the 50crore beneficiaries who benefit-ted from the 133 schemes of theModi Government. The BJPhad fought some Assembly elec-tions last year based on the samestrategy.

As a result, the BJP has sig-nificantly improved its nation-al vote share from 31.34 per centin 2014 to a new record high,while there seems to be only amarginal change in case of theCongress from its 19.5 per centscore of the last elections. The

Congress was shown to havebagged 22.5 per cent votes till thereports last poured in.

The BJP had got 7.74 percent vote share in 1984 when itgot two Lok Sabha seats, afterwhich it consistently saw anincrease till 1998 (25.59 per cent)and then slipped for three con-secutive national elections till2009 (18.8 per cent), beforesurging again in 2014.

In contrast, the Congresscould get a vote share of justabout 6 per cent in UP andBengal, and a little higher atabout 7 per cent in Bihar. Thescore is even worse at just about1 per cent in Andhra Pradeshand Sikkim. Even in Punjab,where the Congress led the way,its vote share is about 40.10 percent. It is 37.3 per cent in Kerala,where it was on course to win 15of the 20 seats . The Congress,

which secured 45 per cent votesin the first parliamentary elec-tions in 1952, saw its voting per-centage remain in 40s till the1971 elections. After a slump to34.5 per cent in 1977, theCongress again returned to 42.7per cent in 1980 and then to arecord high of 48.1 per cent in1984/85.

After Indira Gandhi's assas-sination in 1984, the Congressrecord a vote share of 49.1 percent, it got 32.14 per cent votesin delayed polls that were heldin Punjab and Assam in 1985 —resulting in an overall figure of48.1 per cent.

The Congress vote share,however, began to dip afterthat with its voting percentagedropping to 39.5 per cent in1989 and further to 20s between1996 and 2009, and even belowthat mark in 2014.

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They predicted and theystood vindicated! Nine out

of nine exit polls on May 19had predicted an outright vic-tory for the BJP and six of themhad projected the party win-ning more than 300 seats. Thepollsters had also projectedthe UPA's dismal performancein the wake of the rolling BJPjuggernaut. And some hadforecast that the Oppositionalliance will not touch thethree-digit mark.

It made the ruling dispen-sation (BJP and its allies) gung-ho but invited criticism fromthe Opposition Congress andothers who called it were paidfor, unreliable, inaccurate andgossip.

While the BJP looks set tocross the 300-mark on its ownand the NDA hogging 350seats, the UPA tally was peggedat 85 seats, as per the trendsand results last available.

It was also, perhaps, the firsttime that the pollsters wereunanimous in their projections.

All the exit polls gave the BJP aclear mandate and showed theUPA at a distant second.

The India Today-Axis andNews 24-Chanakya exit pollshave been bang on target.

Most pollsters also cor-rectly forecast the BJP's per-formance in Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh andChhattisgarh — where theOpposition Congress recentlywon the Assembly polls.

Take the case of Rajasthan.Almost all exit polls predicteda clean sweep for the BJP in theWestern State, with some exitpolls handing them all 25 seats

in the State. The News18-IPSOS exit poll said the BJP isset to get 22 to 23 seats in thedesert State, while Today'sChanakya exit poll predicted all25 seats to fall in BJP's kitty.The latter hit the bull's eye.

Ditto is the case of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andBJP chief Amit Shah's homestate Gujarat, where BJP, as perthe India Today-My Axis IndiaExit Poll, is set to make acomplete sweep in the GujaratLok Sabha elections possiblywinning all 26 seats.

Axis My India was amongthose who had successfully

predicted not only the winningparty but also the range of theirmandate.

The Congress-led alliancewas projected as gaining inPunjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.And it did. Some pollsters gaveCongress a tally as low as 38,less than the 44 it won in 2014.The Congress fared a shade bet-ter than 44 but turned true theprojections that it would notcross the three-figure markthis time round too.

In the politically crucialUttar Pradesh with 80 LokSabha seats, the pollsters hascome up with a mixed bag ofresults indicating the com-plexities involved at the groundlevel. If India Today-Axis gavethe BJP-led NDA a maximumof 68 seats and News 24-Today's Chanakya said its tallycould even cross the 70-seatsmark, then ABP-Nielsen gaveNDA as less as 22 Lok Sabhaseats and the SP-BSP-RLDalliance a high of 56 seats. Asthings stand, the Axis andChanakya estimates were theclosest.

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Motormouths and contro-versial leaders from the

BJP like Anantkumar Hegde(Uttar Kannada), Nalin Kateel(Dakshin Kannada), SadhviPragya Thakur (Bhopal), SakshiMaharaj (Unnao), and GirirajSingh (Begusarai) are set toregister big wins.

Sadhvi Pragya Thakur wasleading against Congress'Digvijay Singh by over 3.5 lakhvotes and was projected to winthe constituency by a significantmargin. Pragya had hit theheadlines in the run up to thepolls by claiming that IPS offi-cer Hemant Karkare was killedin the 26/11 attacks due to hiskarma and that he was a traitor.She had to later apologise for theremarks. She had also stoked acontroversy by termingNathuram Godse, who hadkilled Mahatma Gandhi, as anationalist. She had to again ten-der an apology after the remarksgenerated a nationwide out-rage.

Another BJP leaderAnantkumar Hegde, known formaking controversial remarks,won the Uttara (North)Kannada seat in Karnataka,defeating his nearest rival AnandAsnotikar of the Janata Dal(Secular) by a massive margin of4.79 lakh votes, according to theresults declared by the EC onThursday.

Hegde held the portfolio ofjunior minister in the SkillDevelopment andEntrepreneurship Ministry dur-ing Narendra Modi's first termas PM. Hegde had also madeheadlines for wrong reasonswhen he had said theConstitution would be changed.He had to later tender an apol-ogy in the Parliament.

And amid reports of hiscontroversial remarks on Twitter

about Nathuram Godse, Hegdeclaimed his account was"hacked". But later asserted therewas no question of justifyingMahatma Gandhi's killing.

Before that, Hegde hadcalled Congress chief RahulGandhi a "hybrid breed", won-dering how can the son of a'Muslim' father and a Christianmother be a Brahmin.

"...They have no sense aboutreligion. See how much they lie,father is a Muslim, mother aChristian, son is Brahmin. Howdid it come?" You cannot getsuch hybrid breed in any labo-ratory in the world, it is availablein our country's Congress lab-oratory only," he had said,attacking Rahul, at an event inUttara Kannada district.

Nalin Kumar Kateel(Dakshina Kannada), who hadbacked Pragya Thakur on theGodse issue, also won by 2.74lakh votes, as per the resultsannounced on Thursday.

For his part, the vocal SakshiMaharaj won from Unnao witha record margin of four lakhvotes. He had recently stoked

controversy by stating this wouldbe the last election in the coun-try and there would be none in2024.

Ahead of the nominationfor the Unnao constituency, hehad warned the BJP that "resultswould not be good" if he was notre-nominated from Unnao. TheBJP had been contemplatingdropping him.

In his election affidavit,Maharaj has listed 34 criminalcases promoting enmity amongcommunities, criminal intimi-dation, robbery, dacoity, mur-der, forgery, cheating and crim-inal breach of trust besidesrape.

Union Minister and anoth-er firebrand leader Giriraj Singhretained the Begusarai seattrouncing his nearest rivalKanhaiya Kumar of the CPI bya huge margin of over four lakhvotes.

Singh, who had moved toBegusarai from Nawada, afterinitial reluctance, polled 6.88lakh votes out of a total of 12.17lakhs polled on the electionsheld April 29.

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Page 6: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

This Lok Sabha election hasbroken many myths not onlyat the national level but inUttar Pradesh (UP), too. Thisis for the first time that a

Government at the Centre has not onlywarded off the anti-incumbency factorbut has, in fact, improved its position inmany decades. It’s an oft-repeated say-ing that the road to Delhi’s seat of powerpasses through UP and the rulingBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proved thatits pan-India weight could fill anytrough, even the one in UP.

Most political pundits had predict-ed not more than 30 seats for the BJP inthis State, particularly after the gathband-han of the Samajwadi Party (SP),Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) andRashtriya Lok Dal came into existence.These parties were heavily enthused bythe bypoll results of Kairana, Gorakhpurand Phoolpur, where castes like Jats,Yadavs, Dalits and Muslims played a vitalrole to defeat the BJP. Parties thought thatthis time, too, the same formula wouldwork and the BJP would be decimated.

UP comprises more than 25 per centDalits, nearly 18 per cent of Muslims and15 per cent of Yadavas and Jats. Theiralliance would have been lethal to fin-ish the BJP but this formula did not workin 2019. Belying all expectation, the BJPromped home with 60 seats. Manyjournalists and analysts, who analysedthe outcome of the Lok Sabha election,keeping in mind the caste angle, ignoredsomething that clearly worked in thiselection — the politics of emotion, onewhich helped Prime Minister NarendraModi project himself as the do-gooderwho was being obstructed by greedypower players. And for all the polarisa-tion, he seems to have cut across themasses in terms of appeal and acceptabil-ity as a worthy choice in a national bet.

So while in the 2014 Lok Sabha elec-tions, there was a discernible Modi wavesweeping across the country, in 2019,there was a complete denial of this waveby most parties and political commen-tators as well. The SP and BSP are, with-out doubt, casteist parties. While SPdepends heavily on the Yadavas andMuslims, BSP claims the monopoly overthe Dalits votes plus some Muslimvotes. It is an unconcealed fact that byand large, Muslims have been against theBJP and in this election were expectedto vote against the BJP. Muslims are con-sidered to be politically very wise andvigilant and they vote in favour of thecandidate who can defeat the BJP, irre-spective of the party he/she belongs to.This was the reason why the gathband-han was overconfident of pulverising theBJP this Lok Sabha election. It was con-sidering itself to be invincible but all theplanning proved to be day-dreaming.The reality is that in this complicateddeal, vote transference didn’t happenamong partners across the State thoughit had worked at the bypoll level.

The Congress has almost no pres-ence in UP. It has been non-existent forall practical purposes for nearly threedecades. Yet for all the concentratedfocus by Congress general secretaryPriyanka Gandhi to wean the uppercastes away with her temple run and boat

rides, the bottomlines are disastrous.Except for Rai Bareli, the grand old partyhas not been able to retain even Amethifrom where its national president RahulGandhi was contesting. These two seatshave been the pocketborough of theCongress and except for 1977, both havealways been held by the party. The so-called Congress Brahmastra, too, failed.

Now let us consider how the BJPwas able to shatter the dreams of thegathbandhan. Results show that whilethe SP-BSP combine could not makeany significant change in the politicalcontours of Uttar Pradesh, the BSP hasbeen quite lucky. In fact, it has riddenpiggyback on the larger appeal of afront. In the last Lok Sabha elections of2014, the BSP had drawn a blank. Onthe other hand, SP could secure fiveseats last time, mainly held by familymembers, including one by MulayamSingh Yadav. This time, it has held justnine seats. However, the BSP underMayawati has improved its tally fromzero to 12. This shows that despite get-ting full support of Muslims andYadavas, the SP has not been able to getthe Dalit votes transferred in its favour.It is also alleged that Mayawati did notsend her message to the Dalits infavour of the SP candidates because inher heart of hearts, she does not like theYadavas. This was enough for Dalits tonot transfer their votes in favour of theSP, which is dominated by the Yadavasand who are considered to be the mus-clemen. In the last Assembly election,Mayawati had coined the slogan “ChadhGundan ki Chhati Par, Mohar LagaoHaathi Par.” She used to say thatYadavas are the cruel oppressors of theDalits and this slogan silently resonat-ed in this election, too.

While the gathbandhan partieswere mainly dependent on the votes ofJat, Yadavas and Muslims, the BJP,under the leadership of Prime MinisterModi and Chief Minister YogiAdityanath, was telling the peopleabout their achievements. There is nodenying the fact that the pace of devel-opment in Uttar Pradesh has been very

fast. Almost all villages in the State arenow connected with motorable roads,every household has electricity, everyfamily avails gas connection under theUjjwala Yojana. There is hardly anyhouse even in the remote countryside,which does not have a toilet facility. Somuch so that those, who did not havea house to live, are living in pucca hous-es today. There is hardly any memberof any family who does not have a bankaccount under the Pradhan Mantri JanDhan Yojana. Almost everyone hasbeen ensured under the AyushmanBharat Yojana.

These schemes have been imple-mented without any discrimination onthe basis of caste, creed and religion.There was a constant crisis of urea butnow it is available in plenty. Soil healthcards have been distributed to all farm-ers, which have helped them. Hence,casteist factors could not cut any ice.

Another important factor that ledto the BJP’s win is that it was, perhaps,for the first time that the farmers gottimely and proper payment for theirproduce, particularly sugarcane grow-

ers. This is something that was unthink-able at a time when the SP or BSP ruledthe State. Further, the Yogi Governmentalso banned illegal slaughterhouses,thus winning the support of the Hindus.To top it all, not even one communalriot has taken place in the State duringthe period of Modi and Yogi. There wasno peace, no security during the SP/BSPera. Anti-social elements used to havea field day and the police was made pli-ant to the MLAs and MPs belonging tothe castes of the Chief Ministers of theirtime.

Distribution of electricity has con-siderably improved in small villages.Thus, the slogan of ‘Sabka Sath, SabkaVikas’, has gone down well with the peo-ple of the State. Another factor whichhas worked in favour of the BJP is adirect transfer of the subsidy amount inthe accounts of the beneficiaries. Thissuccessfully eliminated the army ofmiddleman and contractors, who neverallowed the farmers and poor to be ben-efited by the numerous welfare schemes.Going forward, Balakot and surgicalstrikes worked heavily in favour of theBJP too, particularly in rural areas. TheBJP also sold it properly to the people.

On the other hand, the Opposition,mainly the leaders of the gathbandhan,failed to raise any issue before the elec-torate as they were heavily dependenton caste factors. Mayawati got so des-perate that she showed the audacity ofpresenting Mulayam Singh Yadav as thegenuine backward and Modi as the fakebackward. People realised that only thefamily members of Mulayam SinghYadav and Mayawati have reaped thefruits of power in amassing a hugeamount of money. Corruption hadbecome a byword during the tenures ofMayawati and Mulayam, which hasbeen completely unheard of during theModi and Yogi regime. This has beenthe reason why caste politics of gath-bandhan has been buried deep and thepolitics of development has been pre-ferred in Uttar Pradesh.

(The writer is Advocate on Record atthe Supreme Court of India)

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Sir — It is shocking that GomathiMarimuthu, the athlete from TamilNadu, has failed the dope test twice andit is even worse that the Anti-DopingAgency did not report the fact that shetested positive a month ago. Thisamounts to cheating. Sportspersonsmust realise that they let down fans andthe country when they test positive forperformance-enhancing drugs.

NR RamachandranChennai

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Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Lovehas no boundaries” (May 22). Indiansprinter Dutee Chand has showntremendous amount of courage tomake the admission of being in asame-sex relationship. It is unfortunatethat the revelation has led to a storm,most importantly on the part of herfamily members. Dutee’s elder sisterSaraswati Chand, herself an athlete,did not approve of this relationshipand said that Chand’s partner had“pressurised and blackmailed” herfor her wealth and property. Its strangethat in today’s times even after theSupreme Court’s historic decision todecriminalise Section 377, which pro-

hibited same-sex relationships, many still live with an old orthodoxmindset.

Dutee Chand’s decision is purelypersonal and we should judge her asan athlete and how she performs onthe track. This personal matter mustnot come in the way of her intensepreparations for the Olympics.

Bal GovindNoida

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Sir — Now that we are staring at a cri-sis, we are beginning to think of solu-tions to the water scarcity that is plagu-ing our cities when we should beimplementing an action plan. Now wehave to act in mission mode, recharg-ing wells, setting up new ones and per-haps make rainwater harvesting a

mandatory practice. The judicious useof water must be encouraged and fieldawareness is crucial. The Governmentshould consult and take the support ofnon-governmental organisations anddomain experts.

Smita PandeyVia email

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Page 7: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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On September 30, 1965, the CommunistParty of Indonesia — Parti KomunisIndonesia (PKI) — attempted a coup d’e-

tat through a clandestine organisation embed-ded within the Indonesian armed forces. ThePKI was close to the Indonesian nationalist heroand first ruler President Sukarno. PKI’s embed-ded organisation, the 13th of SeptemberMovement, believed that a large portion of thecountry’s armed forces was anti-Communist andunder the influence of the US, which was plan-ning to topple Sukarno.

Sukarno was not a communist himself. Inher book, Maoism: A Global History, Julia Lovellwrites that he had kept the large PKI on his sideto neutralise the influence of the military.Nevertheless, in the early 1960s, as tensionsbetween the military and PKI mounted and theeconomy began to unravel, Sukarno made analarming speech in August 1964. Alluding to thedeveloping crisis, Sukarno stated that the coun-try was “living dangerously.”

The 1965 coup attempt was brutally thwart-ed by anti-communist military factions. Thecoup was crushed by Major-General Suharto.Adrian Wickers, in his 2013 book, A History ofModern Indonesia, writes that the military gavefar-right Islamic and Catholic groups amplespace and impunity to carry out some of theworst massacres of the 20th century. A 1977Amnesty International report suggests that“about one million” Indonesians — believed tobe PKI members or sympathisers — were mer-cilessly slaughtered and these included pregnantwomen and children.

The Australian novelist Christopher Kochdramatised the carnage in a 1978 novel. The titleof the novel, The Year of Living Dangerously, wasinspired by Sukarno’s speech. Since the novel wasturned into a film in 1982, the expression “yearof living dangerously” is often used by writersand journalists to describe a tumultuous year inthe life of a country and/or a particularly vio-lent period in which a country spirals into anar-chy and unprecedented bloodshed.

If one sets aside 1971’s bloody civil war informer East Pakistan, then the year in whichPakistan lived dangerously (in the context ofthe mentioned expression) has to be 2007. Itis remarkable that the country actually cameout of it at all.

The year got off to a terrible start when, inJanuary, an Al Qaeda suicide bomber killed 12policemen in Peshawar. Then in February,military chief and president Pervez Musharrafsuspended the Chief Justice of Pakistan, IftikharChaudhry, accusing him of corruption.

The lawyers’ community rejected the sus-pension and began a movement. It was soonjoined by both big and small Opposition par-ties, whose rallies were often attacked by riotpolice. As the movement transformed into apopulist anti-Musharraf drive and spread fromPunjab to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, its leadersdecided to take it to Sindh’s capital city, Karachi.Karachi’s then largest party, the MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM), was a staunch allyof the Musharraf regime.

The MQM wasn’t happy when the suspend-ed judge and his supporters arrived in Karachi

on May 12, 2007. As the judge was waiting atthe city’s airport, riots and open gun battlesbetween MQM activists and those belonging tothe anti-Musharraf alliance such as the PakistanPeoples Party (PPP), Pakhtunkhwa Milli AwamiParty (PkMAP), Pakistan Muslim League(Nawaz) (PML-N) and Awami National Party(ANP), erupted on the roads and streets of thecity. Government buildings, media outlets, carsand buses were fired upon and torched. Sniperstook positions on overhead bridges and moweddown opponents with bullets.

The city came to a standstill as armed menroamed the streets amid dead bodies, abandonedcars and burning motorbikes and buses.According to a May 13, 2007 report by CNN, 33people were killed and dozens were wounded.The MQM and the Musharraf regime accusedthe Opposition parties for the violence, where-as the former and most local and foreign newsoutlets put the blame on the latter andMusharraf.

Then in June, unprecedented monsoonrains in Karachi killed over 200 people. Thevery next month on July 3, militant clerics andtheir ‘students’ fired at security forces postedoutside Islamabad’s Red Mosque. The mosqueand its seminary had been taken over by rad-ical clerics and their supporters, who formonths had been harassing the people of thelocality on the pretext of “vanquishing anti-Islamic activities.” As tensions between the cler-ics and the state rose, security forces moved inafter it was confirmed that the clerics and their“students” were heavily armed. The major siegetook place on July 10 and 11 when Pakistan mil-itary commandos entered the building andeliminated the militants.

On July 13, newspapers reported that 102people had been killed. These included 91 civil-ians (most of whom were militants holed up in

the mosque), 10 soldiers and one ranger. As thepolitical and economic situation continued todeteriorate, while terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda-affiliated outfits increased in number, the exiledchairperson of the PPP Benazir Bhutto, returnedto Pakistan in October. A large rally in Karachithat was escorting her from the JinnahInternational Airport was attacked by suicidebombers and 124 people were killed in the car-nage. Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were suspect-ed of carrying out the attack.

On November 3, Musharraf declared a stateof emergency. The same month, sectarian vio-lence in Kurram Agency killed 80 people andIslamic militants began to take over buildingsin Swat. On November 22, Pakistan was sus-pended from the Commonwealth for refusingto lift the emergency. On November 26, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif returned from exile.

On December, 13 Islamist militant groupsformed the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),which would go on to kill thousands ofPakistanis in the following years. On December27, suicide bombers assassinated Benazir Bhutto.Dozens perished with her and dozens more werekilled in the riots which spread across Pakistanfor three days. Enraged mobs ran amok, settingfire to buildings and automobiles, especially inPunjab and Sindh.

Things almost completely fell apart in2007. However, the country managed to limpback to some “normalcy” but the economy con-tinued to plummet and terrorist attacks becameendemic. Things in this respect began to some-what improve from 2015 onwards. But an eco-nomic downturn, the recent spike in terrorattacks and intense political polarisation, areonce again threatening the country. Are we once again moving towards a year of living dangerously?

(Courtesy: The Dawn)

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The human influence on the plan-et and its environment, leadingto global warming, are no more

hidden. However, there can also be sev-eral natural factors that cause climatechange and variations in global temper-atures. In fact, increased volcanic erup-tions and periods of few sunspots maylead to a drop-off in the temperatureas it happened over the NorthernHemisphere for about a thousandyears, known as Little Ice Age, whichlasted roughly till the mid-18thCentury. Climate variations are, there-fore, generally induced by a mix of nat-ural and human factors. Preciselybecause of this, climate scientists findit difficult to define the phrase “2°Cabove pre-industrial levels” as referred

to in the sub-clause 1 (a) of Article 2of the Paris Agreement, 2015, and fixa numerical baseline for the averageglobal temperature.

The challenge is to separate andquantify human influences on climatechange from that of nature. This willhelp convince and stimulate decision-makers throughout the world for tak-ing up the much-needed climatechange mitigation actions as stated inArticle 2 of the Paris Agreement, 2015,“to limit the temperature increase to1.5°C above pre-industrial levels…tosignificantly reduce the risks andimpacts of climate change.”

The geological era dominated byhuman influences on climate is consid-ered as anthropocene. A recent specialreport by the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) titled,‘Global Warming of 1.5ºC’ attempts totrace the temporal extent of anthro-pocene. The report says that anthro-pocene has geological merit to beregarded as a formal epoch in the geo-logical time scale and that it begins fromthe mid-20th century and continues.Scientists, artists and documentarymakers are all trying to capture and

map the trajectory of Anthropoceneand associated global greenhouse gasemission pathways.

In the face of huge human influ-ence on the earth system, pursuing theefforts to limit the temperature increaseabove 1.5ºC is an ambitious task.Unchecked, the temperature rise above1.5ºC may have significant, long-last-ing and irreversible impacts on humanand natural systems. Among the manyimpacts and the cascading risks thatchanging climate and increase in glob-al temperature will lead to, one is on theHimalayas (to be specific, Hindu Kush-Himalaya region) and the naturalresources thereof.

The International Centre forIntegrated Mountain Development(ICIMOD) described the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region the “ThirdPole” as it “stores more snow and icethan anywhere else in the world out-side the polar regions.” The HKHecosystem is already showing signs ofhuman influences. Changes in cryos-phere are an important indicator of cli-mate change. In February 2019, the ICI-MOD came out with a landmarkstudy titled, ‘The Hindu Kush Himalaya

Assessment’, delineating the impacts ofclimate change and increasing globaltemperature on HKH and its resources.According to the report, glaciers havebeen shrinking since the mid-18th cen-tury, the exception being from 1920 to1940. The ICIMOD warned of direconsequences if the global climateresponse fails to contain the rising tem-perature and said that “current emis-sions would lead to five degrees inwarming and a loss of two-thirds of theregion’s glaciers by 2100.”

Though commonly described as‘Water Tower of Asia’, water crisis islooming large over countries in theHKH region. The unfolding water cri-sis is likely to get worse in the comingyears, aided by human drivers such asclimate change. The per capita wateravailability has drastically gone down,thus compromising on the develop-mental needs, especially of the pover-ty-stricken population.

Rapid rate of urbanisation (oftenunplanned), ever-growing populationand fast-paced industrialisation in theHKH region stress upon the alreadydepleting natural resources, includingwater. In the face of competitive sectoral

demands for water, administeringequitable distribution of water resourcesfor different sectors and needs can beeven more challenging for the existingwater governance structures in theregion.

Hydro-politics played out as a sub-set of regional geopolitics often fer-ments competition among countrieswhich undercuts the prospects ofcooperation. In the geopolitical tug ofwar, it is no denying that countries maybe inclined to use water as a geo-strate-gic weapon. Establishment of effectivetransboundary water governance struc-tures and constant dialogues to achievetrade-offs between upstream anddownstream water uses may precludesuch a scenario. It is important fornations to understand that cooperationon water issues leads to a win-win sit-uation. Efforts must be on to promoteregional dialogue and multi-stake-holders partnership on water issues foreffective water resources managementand conflict mitigation in the region.

About two billion people living inthe basins of the 10 major rivers, whichoriginate from HKH, benefit directlyor indirectly from its resources, espe-

cially water. To ensure water security forthe region, understanding localisedvariations will be the key. For example,in the hilly areas of the region, the mainsource of water is the springs. Thus, inthis case, relevant geographical units foreffective water resources managementwill be the springsheds and not the riverbasins. Augmenting water resources,rejuvenating water bodies and strength-ening water governance institutions willbe vital for the development of theregion, human security and achievingsustainable development goals, especial-ly Goal 6.

It is also important to develop insti-tutional capacities at multi-level gover-nance structures for adaptive andeffective governance, build cross-scalarinterfaces among the various knowl-edge-based systems and strengthen theresilience of the communities. As theIPCC special report on ‘GlobalWarming of 1.5ºC’ suggests, there is astrong need to establish synergiesbetween climate change mitigation,adaptation and sustainable develop-ment goals.

(The writer is a freelance commentator)

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Except Union MinisterManoj Sinha, Hardeep

Singh Puri and KJ Alphons, arecord number of UnionMinisters won their seat due toModi-Amit Shah wave in the2019 Lok Sabh polls. UnionTextile Minister Smriti Iraniemerged as a giant-killeragainst Congress presidentRahul Gandhi who concededdefeat from Amethi in one ofthe most keenly watched con-tests in the country.

The official announcementon most of the seats was await-ed as matching of electronicvoting machine (EVM) countswith voter verifiable audittrail(VVPAT) slips was inprogress.

Prime Minister NarendraModi retained Varanasi by over4.79 lakh votes. He increasedhis victory margin as compared

to 2014 by over one lakh votes,trouncing Samajwadi Party'sShalini Yadav.

Giriraj Singh, who was upagainst Kanhaiya Kumar, for-mer JNU president andCPI(ML) candidate, inBegusarai, was leading by 4.22lakh votes. Radha Mohan Singhfielded from Purvi Champaranwas ahead of his rival AakashSIngh by a margin of nearlytwo lakh votes. In Arrah, RKSingh led against his nearestrival of CPI(ML) by a marginof over one lakh votes.

Ravi Shankar Prasad wasleading against Congress'Shatrughan Sinha on PatnaSahib seat by nearly 2.83 lakhvotes.

Firebrand leader andUnion minister AshwiniKumar Choubey too sailedthrough against RJD'sJagadanand Singh, leading byaround 1.5 lakh votes.

Cabinet Minister KJAlphons was facing a humili-ating defeat in Kerala. Hetrailed at the third place behindCongress' Hibi Aeden andCPI(M) candidate P Rajeevon Ernakulam seat.

His colleague and Union

Housing and Urban Affairsminister Hardeep Puri lost inAmritsar by a margin of over99,00 votes Another big loss ofthe BJP was Union minister ofstate for Railways Manoj Sinhawho was down by around 1.15lakh votes against BSP's AfzalAnsari on Ghazipur seat.

The big winners includedRajnath Singh and NitinGadkari. Singh led againstSamajwadi Party candidate andShatrughna Sinha's wifePoonam Sinha in Lucknow byover 3.45 lakh votes.

Gadkari won from Nagpurby a margin of around 1.97lakh votes. He was up againstCongress's Nana Patole. OnChandrapur(Maharashtra) seatUnion minister of state forHome Affairs HansrajGangaram Ahir had a toughcontest on the platter and hewas trailing behind Balubhauby over 50,000 votes.

In UP's Baghpat, SatyapalSingh was also engaged in akeen fight with RLD candidateJayant Chaudhary. Singh wastrailing behind with 1068 votes.

Sanjiv Balyan was engagedin an intense contest inMuzaffarpur seat in UP. He wasleading over his rival and RLDchief Ajit Singh by thin marginof 3,782 votes.

Maneka Gandhi, whoswitched to Sultanpur(UP) seat,was leading by a slender mar-gin of 13,859 votes againstBSP's Chandra Bhadra Singh.

BJP's biggest winnersincluded VK Singh who ledover his rival from SP SureshBansal by a margin over fivelakh votes in Ghaziabad con-stituency.

Rajyavardhan Rathor wasleading against OlympianKrishna Poonia of Congress by3.89 lakh votes on Jaipur(Rural)seat. Arjun Ram Meghwal was

sailing on Bikaner seat by 2.5lakh votes. Anant KumarHegde (Uttara Kannada) wasleading by nearly five lakhvotes against JD(S) candidateAnand Asnotikar.

Union minister MaheshSharma was leading onGautam Buddh Nagar(Noida)seat by over two lakh votes,against BSP's Satyapal. InBareilly, Santosh Gangwarsailed through with around1.5 lakh votes.

Other ministers of Modigovernment including JualOram(Sundargarh), SadanandGowda(North Bengaluru),Shripad Yesso Naik(North Goa)Ram Kripal Yadav, JitendraSingh(Udhampur), RaoInderjeet Singh(Gurgaon),Narendra SinghTomar(Morena), BabulSupriyo(Asansol), AjayTamta(Almora) among others,were on the victory march.

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Page 9: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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Social media was floodedwith opinions, debates,

jokes, memes especially aimedto the Opposition and theCongress. One of the mostnoticed developments wasPrime Minister Narendra Modiremoving Chowkidar from histwitter handle. He had prefixedit to counter Congress presi-dent Rahul Gandhi’s attackagainst him saying ‘ChowkidarChor Hai ‘.

Ever since the vote countcommenced, netizens begantheir day with a video clipshowing television journalistArnab Goswami mistakenlyreferring to Sunny Deol asSunny Leone.

The clip was shared insuch a huge number that it con-vinced actor Sunny Leone topost, “Leading by How manyvotes????” on Twitter with mul-

tiple emojis. Soon, the memes on

Congress President RahulGandhi and other politiciansbegan making the rounds.

BJP candidate Smriti Irani’swin over Rahul Gandhi inAmethi further stirred thememe broth.

One trending memeshowed Rahul Gandhi’s facephotoshopped on DeepikaPadukone’s body in thePadmavat poster that read“Sadmavati”.

A meme collage showedmultiple images of Smriti Irani,saying: “Smriti Irani looking forsome competition from RahulGandhi”.

Citing a famous scene fromthe film “3 Idiots” a creativememe showed Prime MinisterNarendra Modi telling RahulGandhi, “Neeche se check kar,neeche se!” A rendition ofanother scene from the samefilm, showed a picture ofPakistan Prime Minister ImranKhan and Army Chief Qamar

Javed Bajwa along with the dia-logue: “Hum dukhi the, parhumse bhi zyada 2 log aurdukhi the.”

An old picture of theGandhi family — showingIndira Gandhi and RajivGandhi sitting near a lotus-budclad pond — resurfaced againwith the caption: “Kamal khilneke intezar mein”.

One picture showed RahulGandhi addressing a mediacampaign captioned, “Areehaarna jeetna chhoro,manoranjan mei toh koi kaminahi hui na?”

One viral meme on SmritiIrani’s victory in Amethi read:“If “Ghar mein ghus ke marna”has a face!!”

Don’t miss this hilariousone for the Opposition: “Badedukh ke saath soochit karnapad raha hai ki ess desh ne eksaath 22 pradhan mantri khodiye hai”.

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In a virtual repeat of its spec-tacular performance in the

2014 polls, the BJP-Shiv Senaalliance on Thursday sweptthe Lok Sabha polls inMaharashtra, by either winningor establishing unassailableleads in 41 out of the total 48seats in the State, decimatingonce again the OppositionCongress and limiting the tallyof NCP to five.

On a day when seniorCongress leaders SushilkumarShinde and Ashok Chavan bitelectoral dust, the saffronalliance both humiliated theCongress further by reducingits embarrassing 2014 tally oftwo seats to one seat.

In a surprise outcome,AllIndia Majlis-E-IttehadulMuslimeen (AIMIM) legislatorand former TV journalistImtiaz Jaleel was poised to bagAurangabad by defeating four-time MP Chandrakant Khaireof the Shiv Sena.

The ruling saffron alliance’ssuperlative performance hascome as a big boost to the BJP-Shiv Sena combine ahead of theState Assembly polls to be heldin October this year. With itsstunning performanceachieved after bucking thesevere anti-incumbency facedby the Devendra Fadnavis gov-

ernment, the ruling BJP-ShivSena alliance has dimmed thehopes of the Congress-NCPalliance returning to power inthe State.

The BJP-Sena alliance per-formed well in all the regionsin the state. While the saffronalliance won all the six seats (BJP-3 and Sena-3) in Mumbai,walked away with nine seats inwestern Maharashtra, six seatsin north Mahnarashtra, sixseats in Konkan region, eightseats in Marathwada and eightseats from Vidarbha region.

Though it increased the2014 tally by one seat, theNCP had nothing to gloatabout its electoral performance.For, NCP chief Sharad Pawar’sdaughter and two-time MPSupriya Sule managed to retainthe home seat of Baramati,while his grand nephew andformer deputy chief ministerAjit Pawar’s son Parth Pawarsuffered an embarrassing defeatat the hands of Shiv Sena’s sit-ting MP Shrirang AppaChandu Barne by a margin of2,15,913 votes.

Incidentally, both the BJPand Shiv Sena retained their2014’s winning tally of 23 and18 seats respectively. The onlydifference this time aroundwas that the BJP contested 25seats in the 2019 polls in against26 seats it had contested in

2014 election, while the ShivSena contested 23 seats asagainst 22 seats it had contest-ed in the previous polls.

Both the BJP and the ShivSena have been contesting theLok Sabha polls as an alliancesince 1989. In both the 2014and 2019 polls, the BJP rompedhome with its best-ever win-ning tally of 23 seats as against18 it had won in 1996, while theSena improved its previous

tally of 15 seats, by winning asmany as 18 seats.

However, with its winningtally having been reduced tomere one seat, the Congress’stock has hit its nadir inMaharashtra which was long-considered its bastion.

The only seat that theCongress won wasChandrapur, where its candi-date Balubhau alias SureshNarayan Dhanorkar trounced

Union Minister of StateHansraj Ahir by a margin of50,288 votes.

The Congress’ embarrass-ing electoral debacle can begauged from the defeats of itstwo former chief ministersAshok Chavan in Nanded andSushilkumar Shinde fell byway side. While Chavan wastrounced by Prataprao PatilChikhalikar of the BJP, Shindesuffered a defeat hands of JaiSideshwar ShivcharyMahaswamiji.

The annexing of Chavans’home turf of Nanded is ofextreme political significanceconsidering that barring fourterms, Nanded was under thecontrol of the Congress since1952. While late S B Chavanrepresented the constituencytwice (1980 and 1984), AshokChavan himself was elected toLok Sabha once in a bye-elec-tion in 1987, following theresignation of his father. Late SB Chavan’s son-in-law andAshokrao’s brother-in-lawBhaskarao Khatgaonkar hasrepresented the constituencythrice (1998, 1999 and 2009).

Chavan, who was inciden-tally is one of the two Congresscandidates (out of its 26 can-didates) had been elected toLok Sabha in 2014 polls fromMaharashtra in the face of afierce Modi wave.

The other highlights of thepolls were the victories of BJP’sUnion Minister Nitin Gadkari(Nagpur), state presidentRaosaheb Danve-Patil (Jalna),late senior party leaderGopinath Munde’s daughterand sitting MP Pritam Munde(Beed), late party leaderPramod Mahajan’s daughterPoonam Mahajan (Mumbainorth-central).

Bollywood actress UrmilaMatondkar, who contested thepolls as a Congress candidatefrom Mumbai north con-stituency, suffered a massivedefeat at the hands of BJP’s sit-ting MP Gopal Shetty.

In the initial stages ofcounting in the morning,Matondkar had created a stir bylodging a complaint with theElection Commission of Indiaalleging ‘changed’ EVM, hereon Thursday.

“On the form of EVM 17Cfrom Magathane, the signaturesand the machine numbers aredifferent. A complaint has beenfiled with the EC,” Matondkarhad tweeted.

However, later in theevening, Matondkar concededthe defeat through a tweet:“Congratulations to PrimeMinister @narendramodiji andhis team on a stupendous vic-tory... one that can only beapplauded with a mighty vigour”.

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Fissures within the Oppositioncamp emerged within hours

of the BJP-led NDA looking setfor a stupendous win, with theCPI and the NCP blamingCongress and its president RahulGandhi for the poor perfor-mance in the elections.

Soon after the trends wereout, CPI national secretary AtulAnjan come out in media crit-icising Rahul for the wrongdecisions which led to the cur-rent pathetic stage. He evenblamed Rahul for opening updoors for Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s grand victory.

NCP MP Majeed Memonalso vented his anger againstCongress in TV channels’debates, blaming the “not uptomark performance of the grandold party.

“The BJP fought these elec-tions on the basis of social andreligious divisive policies andthe agenda was set by them onthis basis. But more significantis the fact that the unity of theOpposition has been damagedby the Congress. The policiesand decisions of Rahul Gandhi has weakened opposi-tion unity, led to divisions andopened the doors for Modi’svictory,” said Anjan.

The party’s other National

Secretary, D Raja told PTI thatalthough now was not the timeto blame any individual partyor leader for the dismal per-formance of the Opposition, itis also true that it was becauseof the unity among the alliesthat in states like Tamil Nadu,the BJP wave did not have anyeffect. “Every political partyshould introspect and analysehow this situation happened.We have to rework strategies,reorganise party and reconnectwith the people.

“With BJP capturingpower, they will now aggres-sively pursue Hindutva agendaand cultural nationalism. Thesecular democratic parties havefailed to form a crediblealliance and that has been ourfailure,” Raja said.

CPI general secretarySudhakar Reddy also blamedCongress for its reluctance toally with Left parties in WestBengal. “Sabarimala under-current” helped the UDF elec-torally in Kerala, where RahulGandhi contesting fromWayanad also consolidated theminority votes behind theCongress, he added.

Memon, for his part, said:“We have some setbacks andwe find that unfortunately theCongress didn’t perform up tothe mark.”

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Spearheading the NDA to athumping victory, Narendra

Modi is the third PrimeMinister after Jawaharlal Nehruand Indira Gandhi to retainpower for a second term withfull majority in the Lok Sabha.

As counting is on acrossthe country on Thursday,trends indicate the Modi-ledBJP will garner more than 302seats on its own thereby easilygoing past the halfway mark of272 seats in the 17th Lok Sabhaelections. In 2014, the BJP hadwon 282 seats out of the total543 in Lok Sabha.

Jawaharlal Nehru wonaround three-fourth of the LokSabha seats in the first electionsin the country during 1951-52.Subsequently, he was able to win1957 elections as well as 1962elections with full majority.Since the elections were takingplace for the first time in inde-pendent India in 1951, thepolling had to be spread over aperiod of five months fromOctober 1951 to February 1952.

While the Congress dom-inance was insurmountable in1951, various other politicalstrands such as Bhartiya JanaSangh, Kisaan Mazdoor PrajaParty, Scheduled CasteFederation and Socialist Partyhad started to take shape bythen. The Congress was able towin 364 out of 489 seats dur-ing 1951-52 elections. Theparty polled around 45 per centof the total votes then.

In 1957, when Nehru was upfor re-election, India was goingthrough a difficult phase as thePrime Minister was battling theright wing inside and outside hisparty after passage of the HinduMarriage Act in 1955.

The country was facingmany language disputes.Consequently, after establish-ment of States ReorganisationCommittee in 1953, manystates were formed on the basisof language. The country wasalso feeling the heat due tofood insecurity.

However, among all

this, Nehru was able to win aspectacular victory of 371 seatsin 1957 elections. TheCongress’s vote share evenincreased from 45 per cent in1951-52 to 47.78 per cent in1957. In 1962 elections, Nehruwon again bagging 361 seats outof total 494 seats in Lok Sabha.

After 20 years ofIndependence, the Congress’shegemony in the country’s pol-itics finally started breakingdown in 1967 when it lost sixstate assembly elections. Out ofthis six, Tamil Nadu and WestBengal was lost by the Congressfor the very first time.

However, in 1967 elec-tions, Nehru’s daughter IndiraGandhi was able to get 283seats out of total 520 seats. Thiswas Indira’s first electoral vic-tory in general elections. In1969, Indira expelled the oldguard of the party, which werecalled as Congress (O). Thissection of Congress was led byMorarji Desai.

It was during this timethat Indira coined the slogan“Garibi hatao”, which found awide emotive appeal among theIndian voters. As a result, shewas able to increase her tally to352 in 1971 elections for hersecond term.

In between 2010 and 2014,with UPA Government facingmultiple allegations of massivecorruption scandals, the BJPdecided to appoint the thenGujarat Chief MinisterNarendra Modi as their PrimeMinister candidate for 2014general elections.

With a promise of devel-opment (vikas) across India,Narendra Modi won his first

ever generale l e c t i o n swith fullmajority in

2014with 282

seats.

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Accepting the Lok Sabhapoll outcome gracefully,

NCP chief Sharad Pawar onThursday chose not to blamethe Electronic Voting Machines(EVMs) for the party’s poorperformance in Maharashtra.

Talking to mediapersonsafter the poll outcome that sawhis party win five seats in theState, Pawar said, “Yes. Therewere doubts about EVMs.There were some suspicions inthe minds of people aboutEVMs. But, I don’t want toblame the machines now, sincethe results are out. Once theverdict is out, we have to acceptit gracefully... I am accepting itgracefully,”

“We will definitely examinethe reasons for our defeat in thepolls. We will increase our con-tact with people in the run-up toState Assembly polls due inOctober. Verdict is out now...State is reeling under severedrought, we will have to reachassistance to drought-affectedpeople. Whatever drought reliefprogramme we have undertak-en will continue,” Pawar said.

Pawar’s daughter and two-time MP Supriya Sule retainedthe Baramati seat, while hisgrand nephew Parth Pawarsuffered a humiliating defeat atthe hands of Shiv Sena’s irangAppa Chandu Barne by a mar-gin of 2,15,913 votes.

Alluding to the PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s visitto a cave near Uttarakhand’sKedarnath temple for medita-tion during the last phase of theLok Sabha polls, Pawar said: “Inthe last phase of polling, we sawa ‘chamatkar’ (miracle) of(prime minister NarendraModi) sitting in a cave. Thiswas something we had neverseen before in this country. Wedid not expect such things. Wewill have to see how much itbenefited (the BJP). We don’twant to jump to the conclu-sion,” he said.

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As many as 23 turncoat politi-cians of 76, who had

switched over from one party toother ahead of the Lok Sabhapolls, are in a position to wintheir seats as per the trends so far.

According to the ElectionCommission’s data, 13 turn-coats are leading their con-stituencies while the rest ofthem are set to lose.

Actor-politician ShatrughanSinha, who joined Congressahead of the Lok Sabha election,lost to rival Union Minister RaviShankar Prasad from PatnaSahib constituency in Bihar.

In nearby Madhepura, for-mer JD(U) leader SharadYadav, who joined RJD beforepolls, was lagging by over 1.30lakh votes from DineshChandra Yadav of JD(U).

Tariq Anwar, who switchedfrom Sharad Pawar’sNationalist Congress Party(NCP) to Congress, is alsotrailing by over 40,000 votesfrom Katihar.

Cricketer-turned-politicianKirti Azad is trailing fromDhanbad by nearly 1.6 lakhvotes. He had joined Congressfrom BJP.

Son of former UnionMinister Jaswant Singh,Manvendra, who is contestingon a Congress ticket fromBarmer is also trailing by about3.12 lakh votes.

Meanwhile, Bhojpuri actorRavi Kishan Shukla, who hadcontested on Congress ticket inthe last general elections butjoined the BJP ahead of the LokSabha polls, is leading by over2.80 lakh from Gorakhpurconstituency.

In Karnataka, three politi-cal leaders changed affiliationsfrom Congress to BJP, with twoof them leading in vote counts.While Umesh Yadav and Y

Devendrappa are leading fromGulbarga and Bellary, respec-tively, BJP candidate fromHassan A Manju is behind by1.42 lakh votes from PrajwalRevanna, grandson of formerPrime Minister HDDevegowda.

Sujay Vikhe Patil, son ofsenior Congress leaderRadhakrishna Vikhe Patil, hadswitched to BJP from Congress.He is ahead by over 2.30 lakhvotes in Ahmednagar con-stituency of Maharashtra.

Suresh Dhanorkar, whojoined Congress leaving ShivSena, is ahead of sitting BJP MPHansraj Gangaram Ahir in theChandrapur seat from the state.

In Nanded, PratapChikhlikar, a turncoat fromShiv Sena to BJP, is leadingagainst state Congress chiefAshok Chavan by about37,000 votes.

Baijayant Panda who wasexpelled from the BJD and iscontesting from Kendraparaon BJP ticket is lagging behindby 40,000 votes.

Former Union MinisterPanabaka Lakshmi whochanged sides from Congress

to TDP is trailing by 1.5 lakhvotes in Tirupati constituencyof Lok Sabha seats.

Among other major turn-coats, AAP candidateDharamvira Gandhi fromPatiala, Congress candidatesNaseemuddin Siddiqui fromBijnore, Savitri Bai Phule fromBahraich and Babu Katarafrom Dahod, are also trailing.

In West Bengal’sAlipurduar seat in northBengal, Dasarth Tirkey the sit-ting TMC MP fromAlipurduar, who was once a sit-ting RSP MLA, is staring at hisdefeat. Manas Bhunia, ApurbaSarkar, Kanialal Agarwal, allformer Congress MLAs, whocontested from Midnapore,Baharampur and Raiganjrespectively on TMC tickets aretrailing. Paresh Adhikary andMafuja Khatun, former MLAsof Forward Bloc and CPI(M)who contested on TMC andBJP tickets respectively, aretrailing in Coochbehar andJangipur LokSabha seats.

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Page 10: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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US corporatesector on

Thursday con-g r a t u l a t e dNarendra Modion his “com-manding victory”,saying the PrimeMinister has thepotential to trans-form India andforge opportunityfor all Indians.

P r i m eMinister Modi-ledBharatiya JanataParty (BJP) appearsset to post anemphatic victory in the LokSabha election, bringing Modiback into office for a second term.

“Congratulations to” Modiand the BJP “for a command-ing victory,” said Nisha DesaiBiswal, president of US IndiaBusiness Council (USIBC).

The Prime Minister “hasthe potential to transform Indiaand forge opportunity for allIndians,” she said, adding thatthe USIBC looks forward towork with the BJP government.

Commending Modi on hiselectoral success, Biswal saidthe first five years of Modi’sgovernment saw good progresson reforms.

The establishment of anational Goods and Services

Tax, passage of the Insolvencyand Bankruptcy Code, and avariety of legal and regulatoryreforms catapulted India’s Easeof Doing Business rankingfrom 142 to 77, she said.

“These reforms laid thefoundation for India’s strongrecord of economic growth.Still, much remains to be doneto unlock the expansive growthpotential of the Indian market.With a strong mandate from theIndian people, Prime MinisterModi will have an opportunityto usher in an era of global eco-nomic and strategic leadershipfor India,” Biswal said.

A strong US-India com-mercial partnership will sup-port these goals, helping India

to grow into a $5 trillion econ-omy in the next five years.

“USIBC believes that tradeand investment between thetwo countries is a critical ele-ment of India’s future growth,and looks forward to workingwith Prime Minister Modi andhis team to unlock new growthopportunities across the US-India corridor,” Biswal said.

Biswal was the last diplo-mat to hold the position ofAssistant Secretary of State forSouth and Central Asia in theObama administration.

She left the position onJanuary 20. The importantdiplomatic post has beenvacant in the 28 months of theTrump administration.

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Moody’s on Thursday saidits credit view on India

will depend on policies of thenew government and expressedhope that the country wouldcontinue with its fiscal consol-idation plan.

“Any credit implications ofthe outcome of India’s generalelection will be determined bythe policies adopted by thegovernment in the next fewyears. These policies are yet tobe formulated,” Moody’sInvestors Service VP SovereignRisk Group William Foster said.

Moody’s expects the broadpush towards fiscal consolida-tion to remain, although withgreater policy emphasis onsupporting low incomes, Fosteradded.

As per the trend, BJP-ledNDA will form the governmentat the Centre for the secondsuccessive term with absolutemajority.

In 2017, the US-based rat-ing agency upped India’s ratingto ‘Baa2’ from ‘Baa3’, changingoutlook to ‘stable’ from ‘posi-tive’, and said reforms wouldhelp stabilise rising levels ofdebt.

Deviating from the fiscalconsolidation path as per theFiscal Responsibility andBudget Management (FRBM)Act, the government inFebruary’s interim budgetpegged the fiscal deficit for2019-20 at 3.4 per cent ofGDP, as against the original tar-get of 3.1 per cent.

In 2018-19, the fiscal deficitwas 3.4 per cent of GDP.

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Nissan’s former chairman,Carlos Ghosn, appeared in

a Japanese courtroom onThursday for a hearing aheadof his trial on accusations offinancial misconduct.

It was the first of a series ofhearings to iron out logistics forGhosn’s actual trial. The trial datehas not been set, and experts sayit could be months away.

Ghosn, who led theJapanese automaker for twodecades, was arrested inNovember and charged withunderreporting his income andbreach of trust. He was releasedon bail in March, rearrested inApril on fresh accusations andthen released again on bail onApril 25.

Ghosn insists he is inno-cent and says he was targetedin a “conspiracy” by others atNissan Motor Co.

Nissan, which is allied withRenault SA of France, has seenprofits nose-dive amid the fall-out from Ghosn’s arrest.

Ghosn has hired a stronglegal team as he fights to clearhis name. One of his toplawyers, Junichiro Hironaka,was seen walking into the court-room Thursday with Ghosn.

One of the conditions ofGhosn’s release on bail is thathe is forbidden to contact hiswife.

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The escalation of trade ten-sion between the US and

China has the potential to dis-rupt the global supply chainsand jeopardise the projectedrecovery in growth in 2019, theIMF warned Thursday, over 10days after President DonaldTrump imposed 25 per centtariff on USD 200 billion worthof Chinese imports.

The world’s two largesteconomies are locked in atrade war since Trumpimposed heavy tariffs onimported steel and aluminiumitems from China in March lastyear, a move that sparked fearsof a global trade war. Inresponse, China imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on billions ofdollars worth of Americanimports.

The trade war escalatedafter Trump on May 10increased the import duty onChinese products worth USD200 billion from 10 per cent to25 per cent.

The InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), in ablog authored by EugenioCerutti, Gita Gopinath and

Adil Mohommad said thatconsumers in the US andChina are unequivocally thelosers from the trade tension.

Cerutti is currently theAssistant to the Director at theResearch Department of theIMF, Mohommad is anEconomist in the ResearchDepartment of the IMF andIndian-origin Gopinath is theChief IMF Economist.

At the global level, theadditional impact of the recent-ly announced and envisagednew US-China tariffs, expect-ed to extend to all tradebetween the two countries,will subtract about one-third ofa percentage point of globalGDP in the short term, withhalf stemming from businessand market confidence effects,the IMF said.

Failure to resolve trade dif-ferences and further escalationin other areas, such as theauto industry which wouldcover several countries, couldfurther dent business andfinancial market sentiment,negatively impact emergingmarket bond spreads and cur-rencies, and slow investmentand trade, it said.

“In addition, higher tradebarriers would disrupt globalsupply chains and slow thespread of new technologies,ultimately lowering global pro-ductivity and welfare. Moreimport restrictions would alsomake tradable consumer goodsless affordable, harming low-income households dispropor-tionately,” the IMF said.

Noting that the US-Chinatrade tensions have negativelyaffected consumers as well asmany producers in both thecountries, the IMF said the tar-iffs have reduced trade betweenthe US and China, but the bilat-eral trade deficit remainsbroadly unchanged.

“While the impact on glob-al growth is relatively modestat this time, the latest escalationcould significantly dent busi-ness and financial market sen-timent, disrupt global supplychains, and jeopardise the pro-jected recovery in globalgrowth in 2019,” it said.

The research, using pricedata from the Bureau of LaborStatistics on imports fromChina, found that tariff revenuecollected has been borne almostentirely by the US importers.

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Japan’s Panasonic on Thursdaysaid it would stop supplying

some components to Huawei,joining a growing list of firmsdistancing themselves from theChinese telecoms giant after a USban over security concerns.

Japan’s Toshiba alsoannounced it was temporarilyhalting shipments to Huawei tocheck whether US-made partswere involved, in order to com-ply with Washington’s newrestrictions.

The moves came a day aftermajor Japanese and Britishmobile carriers said they woulddelay releasing new Huaweihandsets, upping the pressure onthe world’s second-largest smart-phone manufacturer.

“We’ve stopped all businesstransactions with Huawei and its68 group companies... That aresubject to the US governmentban,” Panasonic spokesman JoeFlynn told AFP.

Panasonic’s business withHuawei includes the supply of“electronic parts,” he said, declin-ing to provide further details.

Washington’s restrictionsaffect products made fully or par-tially in the United States, wherePanasonic manufactures some ofthe components it supplies toHuawei, the Japanese firm said.

There was no immediatecomment from Huawei on themove, and a Panasonic officialdeclined to comment on whatbusiness the Japanese firm wouldcontinue to do with the Chinesecompany.

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China is seeking supportfrom Russia and from

its Central Asian neighboursin its escalating tariff fightwith the U.S., while alsostepping up protests againstmoves to penalize its tech-nology sector.

Speaking Wednesday at ameeting of the ShanghaiCooperation Organization inKyrgyzstan, Foreign MinisterWang Yi said representativesof the eight-nation groupinghad expressed “broad sup-port” for China’s position.

In comments reportedThursday, Wang reiteratedChina’s stance that it wouldnever accept unequal tradingarrangements.

B eij ing wi l l match“extreme pressure” from theU.S. With its own measures,he said in remarks posted onthe ministry’s website.

The trade frictions have“aroused great concern fromthe international communi-ty,” Wang said.

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The US’ aviation regulatorhas still not received

Boeing’s proposed fix for its 737MAX aircraft, which have beengrounded globally followingtwo deadly crashes, the agency’schief has said.

Boeing has said it willpatch the ManeuveringCharacteristics AugmentationSystem (MCAS) stall preven-tion system, which has beenblamed for the two crashes inIndonesia and Ethiopia thatkilled a total of 346 people andcaused the best-selling planesto be taken out of service.

Boeing said last week thatit had finished making changesrequested by the US FederalAviation Administration (FAA),but the agency’s interim chiefDan Elwell told reporters onWednesday that the agencyhadn’t yet seen the fixes.

“We are still waiting forBoeing to formally submit thesoftware for approval,” he saidon the sidelines of a summit of

global aviation regulators inFort Worth, Texas. Elwell saidthe FAA sent Boeing addi-tional questions about its pro-posed fixes for the MAXplanes, which caused the delay.

The summit set to beginThursday will see the FAAattempt to re-establish trustwith aviation regulators from33 countries including China,Canada, the European Union,Ethiopia and Indonesia.

The regulator called thesummit to walk through thesteps taken to address concernswith the MAX aircraft after itwas criticized for dragging itsfeet on ordering the jetsgrounded.

Canadian and Americanregulators have differed on theproper training for the 737MAX 8, with Canada insistingpilots train in a flight simula-tor and the US saying a train-ing course on a computer oriPad is enough.

“We haven’t determinedthe final training yet,” Elwell said.

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Markets regulator Sebi onThursday levied a total

fine of over �39 lakh on fiveentities for indulging in fraud-ulent trades in the illiquidstock options segment of BSE.

Among the five entities,Straight Line Food Productsand Winsher Commercial werefined �5 lakh each, Shri Radha

Raman Alloys and VindusHoldings were levied a penaltyof �9 lakh each while �11.20 lakhwas imposed on Subhlabh FiscalServices, totalling �39.20 lakh.

After observing large scalereversal of trades in stockoptions segment of the bourse,the Securities and ExchangeBoard of India (Sebi) conduct-ed an investigation betweenApril 2014 and September 2015.

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Pakistan Prime MinisterImran Khan on Thursday

congratulated his Indian coun-terpart Narendra Modi on hiselectoral triumph andexpressed desire to work withhim for peace and prosperity inthe region.

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday led hisBharatiya Janata Party towardsa super-sized victory for a sec-ond term in office.

“I congratulate PrimeMinister Modi on the electoralvictory of BJP and allies. Lookforward to working with him forpeace, progress and prosperity inSouth Asia,” Khan tweeted inboth English and Urdu.

The results of India's gen-eral elections are very signifi-cant for Pakistan as the for-mation of the next governmentin New Delhi will determine

the course of Indo-Pakistanties, which were pushed to anew low after the Pulwama ter-ror attack.

In April, Khan said hebelieved there may be a betterchance of peace talks withIndia and settle the Kashmirissue if Modi's party BJP winsthe general elections.

Meanwhile, Foreign Officespokesman Mohammad Faisalsaid that Pakistan was com-mitted to resolve all issueswith India through dialogueirrespective of the outcome ofthe elections.

“Pakistan has consistentlymaintained that the only way toresolve all outstanding issues,including the Jammu & Kashmirdispute is through implementa-tion of the UNSC resolutions.Dialogue is hence essential. Weremain committed to the same,irrespective of whoever formsthe new Government in India,”

Faisal said at his weekly mediabriefing here.

He was responding to aquestion about the outcome ofIndian elections and Pakistan'sexpectations from the newgovernment in New Delhi.

Faisal also said that Indiashould “stop misleading theinternational community” andaccept the ground realities andaspirations of the people ofKashmir.

Just a day before theannouncement of results,Pakistan's Foreign MinisterShah Mahmood Qureshi andhis Indian counterpart SushmaSwaraj on Wednesdayexchanged pleasantries on thesidelines of the ShanghaiCooperation OrganisationCouncil of Foreign Ministers'meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstanand conveyed to her Pakistan'sdesire to resolve all issuesthrough dialogue.

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Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursdaytelephoned her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to congrat-ulate him on his victory in the general elections during whichthe two leaders pledged to raise the India-Bangladesh relation-ship to unprecedented new heights.

Prime Minister Modi led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)towards an emphatic victory for a second term in office.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister telephoned Modi to con-gratulated him on the clear mandate given by the people of Indiato the NDA Government, an official statement said.

During the telephonic conversation, which lasted over fiveminutes, Hasina said “this emphatic verdict is a reflection of thetrust and confidence reposed on you by the people of India.”

She said that the people of South Asia would be happy overthis win and expected to pave ways for the people of the regionto work together.

“The two leaders pledged to continue to raise the India-Bangladesh relationship to unprecedented new heights. Theyrecognised the importance of rapidly completing on-going plansfor deepening the partnership in security, trade, transportation,energy and people-to-people contact,” the statement said. PTI

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Chinese President Xi JinpingThursday extended his

“heartfelt congratulations” toNarendra Modi for winning thegeneral elections, in a rare ges-ture of greeting a foreign leaderwell before the officialannouncement of the results.

In a letter delivered by theChinese Embassy in New Delhito the Ministry of External Affairsamidst the counting of votes, Xisaid: “on the occasion of theNational Democratic Alliancewining the 17th Lok Sabha elec-tions of India under your lead-ership, I would like to extend myheart-felt congratulations.

“As important neighboursto each other, China and India

are the two largest developingcountries and emergingeconomies in the world.

In recent years, China-India relations have shownstrong momentum of develop-ment under the joint efforts ofboth sides”. Significantly, Xi inhis letter to Modi highlightedthe “good” coordination andcooperation between the twocountries on multi-polarisa-tion, economic globalisationand multilateralism.

China, which is battling abruising trade war with the US,has emerged as a bitter critic ofPresident Donald Trump's poli-cies putting America first, under-mining the process of globalisa-tion which had benefitted thedeveloping countries. PTI

Dubai: Mohammed bin Zayed,the Crown Prince of AbuDhabi and Deputy SupremeCommander of the UAE'sArmed Forces, on Thursdaycongratulated Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on his electionvictory, saying he looked for-ward to working with him todeepen the strong bilateral ties.

Prime Minister Modi onThursday led his BharatiyaJanata Party towards a super-sized victory for a second termin office.

“I was pleased to talk to mydear friend Narendra Modi,India's PM, over the phone tocongratulate him on his party'selection win,” said Mohammed,colloquially known as MbZ.PTI

Washington: Indian-Americansfrom across the US on Thursdaycelebrated the electoral victoryof Prime Minister NarendraModi by distributing ladoosand watching election results inmovie theatres and restaurants.

Election watch parties wereheld in restaurants and inhomes where scores of Indian-Americans, along with theirfriends and families, gatheredlate Wednesday night to watchelection results live either onIndian new channels orFacebook.

The election results wereshown live in at least two the-atres, including one inMinneapolis. PTI

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Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu on

Thursday became the first worldleader to congratulate his coun-terpart Narendra Modi forscripting an “impressive victory”in the elections and vowed tostrengthen their “great friend-ship” as well as bilateral ties.

Riding on a massive Modiwave sweeping through mostparts of India, the BJP was setto return to power Thursday asit led in 292 seats while theCongress trailed far behindwith 51, according to trendsreleased by the ElectionCommission for all 542 seatsthat went to polls.

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Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Thursday

congratulated his Indian coun-terpart Narendra Modi for a“landslide victory” in the gen-eral elections and hoped towork closely with him in future.

As the early trends in thevote count indicated a resound-ing victory for Modi, Oli post-ed a tweet wishing him a suc-cessful tenure.

“I extend warmest con-gratulations to Prime Minister@narendramodi ji for landslideelection victory in the LokSabha Elections 2019. I wish allsuccess ahead. I look forwardto working closely with you,” hetweeted.

Washington: Top Americanlawmakers on Thursday con-gratulated Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on his impres-sive victory in the general elec-tions, saying they were lookingforward to continue workingwith his government tostrengthen the Indo-US ties

Prime Minister Modi ledhis BJP towards a huge victo-ry for a second term in office.

“As co-chair of the SenateIndia Caucus, I want to con-gratulate the Indian people ontoday's historic election - thelargest democratic election inhistory,” Senator Mark Warner,Co-Chair of the powerful SenateIndia Caucus in his congratu-latory message to Modi.

“I look forward to contin-uing our work with PM Modi'sadministration to strengthenour important alliance withIndia,” said Warner. PTI

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French President EmmanuelMacron on Thursday con-

gratulated Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on his electoralvictory and the two leadersreaffirmed their commitmentto work together towards fur-ther strengthening of the bilat-eral Strategic Partnership.

Prime Minister Modi onThursday led his BharatiyaJanata Party towards a victoryfor a second term in office.

Macron congratulatedModi over telephone and thetwo leaders reaffirmed theircommitment to work togethertowards further strengtheningof the Strategic Partnershipbetween India and France, anofficial statement said.

Modi thanked France forher steadfast support to Indiaon critical issues.

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Japanese Prime Minister AbeShinzo on Thursday congrat-

ulated his counterpart NarendraModi for his resounding elec-toral victory in the general elec-tions and vowed towards furtherstrengthening the India-Japanspecial strategic ties.

Prime Minister Modi ledhis Bharatiya Janata Partytowards what is certain to be aresounding victory for a secondterm in office as it led in 302seats, according to trendsreleased by the ElectionCommission for all 542 seatsthat went to polls.

“Prime Minister of Japan,Abe Shinzo called PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andcongratulated him for theresounding victory of his partyin the 2019 General Elections,”the Ministry of External Affairssaid in a statement.

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Page 12: C M Y K - The Pioneer...Rahul Gandhi may have record margin, but his humil-iating defeat at the hands of ... schemes which fulfilled aspi-rations of youth, farmers, labourers and middle-class,

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Time away from the game has made him "hun-grier than ever before" says South Africa bats-

man Hashim Amla, gearing up for his third WorldCup.

With more than 18,000 international runs underhis belt, Amla was once a batting mainstay forProteas but lost his place in the team due to a dipin form.

He missed the ODI series against Sri Lanka ear-lier this year, with Aiden Markram taking his placeas an opener alongside vice-captain Quinton deKock in the series.

Amla was also missing in action at the IPL andhe says the long break helped him to sharpen hisgame.

"Things happen that you don't anticipate andI did not anticipate how things have gone recent-ly. But I am a firm believer that when somethinghappens, there is some good in it. I have had timeaway and now I am really looking back to wearingthe green and gold again," Amla was quoted as say-ing by the ICC.

"I am hungrier than ever before, there is nodoubt about that. I have been blessed to have thisshirt for a while but the time off has made me wantto come back stronger.

"This is my third (World Cup) so I know whatit is all about. I have a strong record in England andI have always enjoyed coming here."

The 36-year-old has already featured in twoWorld Cups for South Africa but New Zealandended their run in both the editions — quarter-finals in 2011 and semi-finals four years ago.

South Africa will open their campaign againstWorld No 1 England, a side tipped to win the WorldCup, and Amla believes the underdog status will suitSouth Africa.

"It is the best first game we could have askedfor. We have played England recently and had somesuccess against them, I have done well against themtoo," he said.

"This year, you don't see the same big namesand that is why the focus is not on us but that hassome good in it. There has not been much chat aboutus winning in comparison to the past but I don'tthink that played a part in how we performed.

"At the end of the day, we always gave our bestand played to win. The fact there has not been a lotof chat at this World Cup means there is less expec-tation but in the team we think we can do well."

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Former skipper RickyPonting believes defending

champion Australia's abilityto bowl and play spin willdefine their success in theupcoming World Cup.

"The thing that will defineAustralia's success in the WorldCup is, one, how well they bowlspin and, two, how well theyplay it," Ponting was quoted assaying by the 'Sydney MorningHerald'.

"That's been their Achilles'heel the last 12 or 18 months.With [Adam] Zampa bowlingwell now, Nathan Lyon's obvi-ously in the squad and GlennMaxwell's done a good job withthe ball whenever he's played."

Ponting said there wereconcerns about the middle-order's ability to play spin ayear ago but the return ofDavid Warner and Steve Smithhas strengthened the team.

"And I think some of ourmiddle order are probablyslightly better players of spinnow than they were 12 or 18months ago," said the 44-year-old, who won Australia the1999 World Cup as a player,before guiding the team to suc-cessive titles in the next twoeditions as a captain.

"With Warner there nowand Steve Smith coming back

in, the middle order looks a lotbetter against spin bowlingthan it probably was."

Warner and Smith hadserved a 12-month ban andreturned to competitive crick-et at the Indian Premier Leaguewith Warner amassing 692runs in 12 matches and Smithscoring 319 runs in 12 match-es and leading RajasthanRoyals to three wins in fivematches.

"They're both playing real-ly well. Steve Smith still thinkshe's not probably 100 per centfit just yet — but he's not faraway. And Warner's been thedominant batsman in the IPL,"Ponting said.

There are concerns thatSmith and Warner will be tar-geted by the crowd during theWorld Cup with English crick-eter Moeen Ali urging thespectators to treat them withrespect.

"Those two coming in,obviously they're class players- they'll have their fair share ofissues to deal with from thecrowds and stuff when they getover there," he said.

"But they're big boys.They've been there and seen itall before. I'm sure they'll befine."

Australia will begin theircampaign against Afghanistanon June 1 at Bristol.

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Former Australian pacer BrettLee has picked India's Jasprit

Bumrah as one of his top threefast bowlers for the upcomingWorld Cup.

"What a wonderful bowler,"said Lee of Bumrah, who hastaken 85 wickets in 49 ODIs.

"He's got a good record,wonderful yorker, good pace,"added the Australian.

Besides Bumrah, Lee pickedcompatriots Mitchell Starc andPat Cummings as the other twofast bowlers who will do well atthe quadrennial tournament.

"You'd have to stick withMitchell Starc," Lee told crick-et.Com.Au.

Starc, a left-armer, had suf-fered a chest injury lastFebruary and is nearing peak

fitness. "He's still got that qual-ity. When that pace is up he'shard to go past," Lee said ofStarc, who was the 2015 Playerof the Tournament for his 22wickets at 10 runs apiece.

Heaping praise onCummins, Lee said, "PatCummins: pace, accuracy, vari-ations. He can do it all." In sixmatches this year, Cumminshas taken 17 wickets at just14.29.

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Australia suffered an injury scare ahead ofthe World Cup after opener Usman

Khawaja suffered a nasty blow on the helmetwhile batting against West Indies in a warm-up match.

Khawaja was struck by a bouncer fromAndre Russell in the second over whileAustralia was chasing 230, forcing the open-er to retire hurt.

He looked in discomfort and walked offthe field accompanied by Australian teamdoctor Richard Saw, sending a scare throughthe Australian World Cup camp.

However, scans on his jaw later clearedhim of any serious injury as Australia

breathed a sigh of relief."It was very scary," said Shaun Marsh,

who hit an unbeaten half-century in the vic-tory.

"It copped him on the side of the cheek-bone … The main thing is he is OK and canbounce back pretty quickly.

"(Khawaja was) a bit shaken, as you arewhen you get hit on the head. But he is atough cookie, Uzzy, and he'll be ready to go."

Khawaja didn't take part in the matchagain even as Australia went on to register aseven-wicket victory over West Indies in thefirst of their three warm-up games.

Khawaja is expected to be available forselection for Australia's next warm-up matchagainst England on Saturday.

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England could be the first team toscore 500 runs in ODIs, Indiacaptain Virat Kohli said in jest as

captains could not agree on the scor-ing trends in what is expected to be ahigh-scoring World Cup.

With 481 for six against Australialast year, England already hold therecord of highest ODI total. In theirbuild to the World Cup, they outplayedPakistan 4-0 in a high-scoring series.

At the captains' media interactionahead of the mega event, Kohli wasasked if the 500-run mark could bebreached in this edition.

"I was just going to say it reallydepends on these guys. They seem tobe obsessed with getting to 500 beforeanyone else," said Kohli while point-ing to his English counterpart EoinMorgan, who sat next to him.

Kohli conceded that the tourna-ment will see a run-fest but pressureof playing in a World Cup will makeeven 260-270 hard to chase.

"It is going to be a high scoringtournament but back home too I said260-270 will also will be as tough toget in a World Cup as chasing 370-380.I don't see many high scoring gamesin the later stages of the tournament,initially some teams might get on a rollbut later on you will see 250 defend-ed as well. That is the kind of pressureWorld Cup brings."

The Indian captain expects theteams to be more cautious as the tour-nament progresses.

"Not all the teams are going to bein a great position (in the later half).The ones who have to make sure thatthey get the result are going to beunder pressure to chase even a smalltotal. The fact that you are going to beclose to a knock out berth will get youunder pressure in the latter stages andall teams recognise that.

"Then you will not see manyteams going gung ho from ball one.Generally both teams would like tostart in a balanced way and look tocapitalise on the moments. So I seepressure being a massive factor in theWorld Cup."

The same question was posed to

Australian captain Aaron Finch, whowas also part of the 2015 World Cupwinning squad.

"If you see the last couple ofyears, trajectory of scores has beengoing up and up in England. We havebeen at the receiving end of the high-est one. I don't want to put a numberone it. Hard to tell (what could be thehighest-score in the tournament).

"On small grounds with goodpitches, if the top order gets going, theteams are so explosive these days andif they keep going till the end it (thetotal) could be anything."

Finch picked India and England asthe teams to watch out though he said

it would be a highly competitive tour-nament with all teams playing eachother at least once.

Kohli also agreed with Finch thatEngland are going into the World Cupas the "strongest" side.

The marquee clash of the megaevent will be on June 16 when Indiatake on arch-rivals Pakistan at OldTrafford.

A question on that mouth-water-ing contest was always coming andwhen it came, Kohli and Pakistanskipper Sarfaraz Ahmed were askedhow they will approach the high-pres-sure game. And their reply was a stockone.

"Look India Pakistan is always avery very anticipated match but wekeep saying again and again. If you askthe players it is very different fromhow the fans look at the game. Yes youfeel the anticipation and excitement ofthe fans when you enter the stadiumbut as soon as you step on the field,it is very professional.

"For us it is just another game youneed to win as a team. Yes it bringspressure because the atmosphere inthe stadium is very different and as Isaid you only experience that till thetime you start competing in thegame. As soon as you get into it, it isa game of cricket for all of us," said the

India captain as Sarfaraz nodded inagreement.

"My answer is the same. I don'tneed to add," said the Pakistan skip-per.

While many expect a bagful ofruns in the World Cup, bowlers arebound to come into play at somepoint, said New Zealand skipperKane Williamson.

"We have spoken about the bat-ting but equally important is the bowl-ing. I have no doubt that there will bevenues who will be more suited to thebowlers. We will have to find a wayto play well in all conditions," saidWilliamson.

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England batsman Joe Root saidthat there is plenty to learn

from Australia, whom they play inan official warm-up match onSaturday, 25 May, and their histo-ry in World Cups.

Australia have historicallyraised their game at the ICCMen's Cricket World Cup, display-ing sustained excellence and ruth-less professionalism. Those are thevery traits that have given themfour title wins in the last five edi-tions of the tournament.

"Australia have always hadstrong squads," Root told SkySports. "They've gone into every

World Cup right up there interms of the rankings and depthwithin their squad for a numberof those World Cups and they'vewon pressure moments. So there'splenty to learn from them as aside."

Root was also excited by thechallenge of taking on a rejuvenat-ed Australian team at the WorldCup. Australia have won their lasteight ODIs on the trot, and thatwas even before the returns ofSteve Smith and David Warner.With the two now back, it has onlyfurther shored up the side'sstrength and confidence.

"We've got two of the bestplayers [Warner and Smith] back

��2���4� GAustralia batsman ShaunMarsh said that he is not worriedabout his role, or the competition forspots, at the upcoming men's WorldCup.

Marsh, who scored an unbeatenhalf-century in Australia's comfort-able win over West Indies in an unof-ficial fixture on Wednesday saidthat he was happy with the acclima-tisation the knock afforded him.

Marsh was one of Australia'sbiggest positives in their 5-0 defeatagainst England in June last year. The35-year-old had scored 288 runs atan average of 57.60, which includedtwo spectacular hundreds.

"It certainly does give you con-fidence if you've scored runs here inthe past," Marsh told reporters. "It wasnice to spend some time out in themiddle and get my feet moving. Ienjoy batting out here. Obviously, it'sa different challenge. The wickets areslower [compared] to what they areback home, and it swings around a

bit."Marsh didn't sound worried

about making the XI and alsobrushed aside concerns when askedif he thinks he will be competing withUsman Khawaja for a spot in theteam. "I'm not really sure. I'd like tothink I'm nice and flexible," he said."I've batted from one to six through-out my career. I'm just going to tryand enjoy the practice games andspend more time out in the middle.And see what happens." PNS

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Bowling has always beenPakistan's strength and the

return of Wahab Riaz andMohammad Amir has given theunit the much-needed balancefeels former Pakistan skipperShahid Afridi.

"We did quite a few exper-iments with the side. We restedthe seniors in the series againstAustralia, giving chance toyoungsters," Afridi said in avideo posted by the PakistanCricket Board on its twitteraccount.

"Our bowling struggledbefore the World Cup I thinkbecause they lacked experiencethere. Now Wahab Riaz, (leg-spinner) Shadab Khan andMohammad Amir are back andit's a well-balanced team. Weshould not have any excusenow."

Afridi said that the best partabout this Pakistan team wasthat the batting — which has

always been an area of concern— has looked good this timeround.

"I think this team has theright combination. The bestthing is (that) batting used to bea constant worry for us but ourbatsmen are now in good form,"he explained.

But Afridi warned that in atournament like the World Cup,it will be very important to startwell and gain momentum earlyinto the event.

"It's very important to winthe first couple of matches tobuild a momentum ... Ouryoungsters are capable of beat-ing any team in the world.

"I see Pakistan as one of theteams in the semi-finals and,God willing, I'm confidentthey'll play the final too. Pressureis inevitable in internationalcricket. It tests a player and hismental strength. But WorldCup is also a great opportunityto become a hero with thewhole world looking at you."

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playing for Australia now. It's bubblingup very nicely to be a very excitingseries, and I'm sure that World Cupgame won't disappoint either," Rootsaid. "We want to beat Australia'sstrongest side and those two are defi-nitely in that. It's a very exciting peri-od for us, and we've got such a greatopportunity to do something veryspecial."

Reflecting on England's own trans-formation into a world-class ODIteam, Root put it down to a lot of hardwork and hoped they could enjoy thefruits of that labour at the World Cup.Since the 2015 World Cup, Englandhave won 58 out of their 88 matches,making them the winningest team inthe interim four-year period.

"I'd like to think that the way thatwe've improved over this four-yearcycle, we are probably ahead of wherewe thought we would be at this stage,"Root said. "We've worked really hard todeserve the tag of the No.1-ranked teamgoing into the tournament; I think weshould enjoy that. We should get a lotof confidence from that and reallyembrace that and enjoy what we'vebeen doing and take it forward into thegames.

"The best thing about it is that weare confident, but we are realistic thatnothing is ever given to you in thisgame, and that you are going to haveto continue to work very hard. To wina tournament, you have to be consis-tent as well."

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Elders are like the trees of wis-dom. Therefore it is veryimportant to preserve theirwisdom and pass on to thenext generation so that the

continuity remains intact. It is alwaysfruitful to allow the culture to pass onfrom one generation to other in its purestform so that our society remainsenriched in values.

Aging is a part of life and no one canescape this transition. A child grows intoan adult and with every passing day agetakes a toll on each one of us. It takesmany years to earn the kind of experi-ence an elderly person has accumulat-ed over his life span. Therefore we cansay that our elders are similar to a guidewho can steer us through the tough jour-ney of life, successfully.

It is always in the interest of theyounger lot to offer respect to theirelders. Just like a soldier fighting a warcommands respect from his fellowcountrymen for all the ups and down hehas overcome, you must respect yourelders as they also have seen life close-ly and are always willing to share theirexperiences and guide us through.Experiences from their life can act as atorchbearer for us in the long run.

Elders are very important for an equi-table growth of society. Any social setupis considered more cultured if its peopletreat their senior citizens with respect andcare. A society devoid of blessings fromits senior people surely runs down thedrain in absence of any guidance. All ener-gy and no experience could act a sourceof conflict in the society leading to a com-plete chaos and anarchy.

Elders are very important in the busyworld of today where most of the marriedcouples are working. It results in no timefor their kids which end up swayed in

wrong direction in absence of rightteachings. It is therefore imperative to haveelders in your family so that our futuregeneration grows up with required moralvalue and knowledge of culture.

It is very important that our younggeneration knows what aging is like andshould be aware that aging is the harshreality of life. Only lucky people reachthat part of life. We should be caringtowards them and must know that oneday we would be old too. Hopefully,when we get old the others show samekindness and concern towards us.

It takes nothing to thank our eldersevery now and then and add sense ofdignity into their, perhaps eventless,lives. A small thanking gesture could addhuge energy into their weakening bones.A blessing from them could lead us tonew highs.

We know that they love us , but don’twe? One of the simplest reason torespect the elders is that we love them.They care for us when we are sick , cookfor us , care for us , talk to us teach usand love us more than life itself. We lovethem , we follow them and their words.They show us their love by the acts ofkindness and care , we show it by respect.The touching of feet in morning or dailyevening walks are not just a rule , theyare what shows our love . Respect is partof love, love doesn’t exist without respectand respect is one of many signs of love.To let the elders know you care justrespect their words and actions . Thiswill cement your relation and trust willmultiply in no time. Life becomes eas-ier for us when we have our elders onour side during our struggles

Helping a needy elder is always sat-isfying and feeds one with a sense ofgratitude. There is no better feeling thancarrying their basket full of groceries

from the market to their place. Thisendeavor of yours could win you respectin their eyes and ultimately in those ofthe society.

One of the most important point thatstresses upon the need of keeping eldershappy and being in their good books isthat they could help the administrationof our country in drafting and framingnew policies. As they are well versed withthe ground realities of the country, theirexperience is valuable in coming upwith new rules of co-existence with ener-gizing thoughts from the youngsters.

Life hands you trouble and solves itfor you as well and we have the puzzles

and a key that solves all puzzle . Respectthe help for it is what makes life livable

Like a high-five after a splendid race,the player deserve it . It doesn’t meanthey will stop running or never runagain, the high-five justifies the achieve-ment and is a mark of respect . The tip-ping of hat in presence of successful manis not to pacify the man but to show ourrespect . Our elders have run a nice longrace , they have won and as form of kin-ship we respect them . Life would betasteless without appreciation andrespect s the up-est form of appreciation.We shouldn’t respect them just becausewe should, we should respect them

because we want to. A new member ofteam follows a legacy and later becomesthe flag bearer . This cycle works onlyif its based on respect .

Life is long and short at the sametime, long enough that we enjoy the walkand short enough that running is theonly option . We need to mix it up andthe proportions are the crux of it. Theexperienced chef is better than amateur, even if they just hold their hand whilethey learn . Respect is how we establishthis balance and success comes from bal-ance and stability. If you want to improveyour chances of success start respectingthose who deserve it.

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Veteran actress Dimple Kapadia hasbeen cast in Christopher Nolan’s actionepic Tenet, which will also feature

Robert Pattinson and Michael Caine, and willbe shot across seven countries, includingIndia.

While Dimple, 61, is yet to comment onit, celebrities from Bollywood have cheered heron.

Actor Anil Kapoor called her casting“phenomenal,” while filmmaker AnuragKashyap tweeted, “So cool... Dimple Kapadiain a Chris Nolan Film. Wow!”

Film producer Guneet Monga sent in con-gratulations.

Dimple, who made her screen debut with1973’s Bollywood film Bobby, is a NationalAward winner. She has proved her mettle inIndian cinema with an eclectic mix of paral-lel and commercial films like Rudaali,Krantiveer, Dil Chahta Hai and Finding Fannyamong others.

Mumbai-based talent manager PurviLavingia Vats, who was instrumental in gettingAli Fazal a role in Fast and Furious 7, says shepitched Dimple for the role to Nolan’s castingteam in Los Angeles.

“Dimple is a great and a wonderful person.She is the only Indian actor to be a part of thisproject as of now. They will be shooting thefilm in different countries, and India is one ofthem,” Vats said.

“It took me a few months of convincing.But Dimple was up for it. It is something dif-ferent for her, and it was an interestingprocess to make it all a reality,” added Vats, whois focussed about getting more internationalexposure for Indian talent.

Tenet was so far being described as a “mas-sive, innovative, action blockbuster,” but plotspecifics are under wraps.

Pattinson, John David Washington and LeaSeydoux are previously announced cast mem-bers. Apart from Dimple, the new joinees inthe film, to be distributed by Warner Bros.Pictures in theatres worldwide on July 17, 2020,include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, KennethBranagh, Clemence Poesy and Caine.

Pattinson said, “I’ve been a little wary ofdoing big films for years and years, but there’sjust something about Chris Nolan’s stuff. Heseems like the only director now who can dowhat is essentially a very personal, indepen-dent movie that has huge scale. I read the scriptand it’s unreal.”

Nolan’s last film was Dunkirk.=,5�#

Costumes worn by theseven main cast membersof the 12-season TV showThe Big Bang Theory,which closed in a big

finale, would be donated to a muse-um here.

As per the creator Warner Bros,the costume donation to theSmithsonian’s National Museum ofAmerican History here includes thoseworn by characters Sheldon Cooper(Jim Parsons), Leonard Hofstadter(Johnny Galecki), Penny (KaleyCuoco), Howard Wolowitz (SimonHelberg), Raj Koothrappali (KunalNayyar), Amy Farrah Fowler (MayimBialik) and Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch).

The items will join thousands ofartefacts in the museum’s popularentertainment collections and helptell the story of ground-breakingwork in American television.

The donations are full costumesworn by the seven primary charactersfrom the series costume designerMary Quigley.

Among the costume pieces areSheldon’s iconic “Flash” t-shirt,Leonard’s “recycle” t-shirt and hood-ed cargo jacket, Penny’s pink tank topand Ugg boots.

Also included are Howard’s plaidshirt and red turtleneck, Raj’s sweatervest and jacket, Bernadette’s yellowcardigan and floral dress and Amy’sbrown wool sweater and green, knee-length skirt.

However, the museum said thereare no current plans for its display.

The series about scientists drewto a close after 12 seasons, with anemotional finale that revealed somebig news, tied up loose ends and evenfeatured a celebrity cameo.

In the first of two back-to-backepisodes, scientists Sheldon Cooper(Jim Parsons) and his wife Amy(Mayim Bialik) got the news that theyare receiving the Nobel Prize inphysics for their theory of superasymmetry.

At the Nobel ceremony inSweden, Amy encourages little girls“who dream about science to go forit.” In a cameo appearance, SarahMichelle Gellar sits next to Raj(Kunal Nayyar) in the audience, butassures him it’s “not a date”.

Cooper gives a heartfelt accep-tance speech that, to fans who havebeen tuning in since the show’sbeginning, shows how much thecharacter has grown out of his ego-tistical and selfish personality over the

course of 12 seasons.“I was under a misapprehension

that my accomplishments were minealone. Nothing could be further fromthe truth. I have been encouraged,sustained, inspired and tolerated,not only by my wife, but by the great-est group of friends anyone ever had,”he said.

The Big Bang Theory waslaunched in 2007. The show hasreceived 52 Emmy Award nomina-tions and 10 wins, seven GoldenGlobe nominations, and the spinoffprequel Young Sheldon.

Actor Jim Parsons has opened upabout his decision to leave The BigBang Theory, saying he could notbring himself to do another season ofthe hit show.

The Golden Globe winner hasfeatured as the beloved SheldonCooper on the hit comedy series for12 seasons. Late last year he revealedhe was stepping away from the show.

“It was the first time in my life ofdoing this show that it occurred to methat I might want to not do anothercontract after (season) 12 was up,” awebsite quoted Parsons as saying.

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m anAries or just because maybe I’m intouch with myself. Whatever it is,

once I had that thought, I was like,‘Well, that’s your answer’,” he added.

Parsons will, however, remain inthe The Big Bang Theory orbit as hecontinues to narrate and executive-produce its prequel Young Sheldon.

“There was no factor; there wasno situation that I was like, ‘Well, I’vehad enough of that.’ No. There wasnothing like that. It was just...whenyou know, you know. And you’re sus-ceptible and thrown around by thewhims of your own existence and get-ting to a certain age and your lifechanges and suddenly you just thinkdifferent,” Parsons said.

He added, “It has been fascinat-ing to think about who I was 12 yearsago. And sometimes when I havetrouble learning a line or saying a lineof Sheldon’s right now, it’s hard toknow why specifically. But it’s like,you’re not the same person you were.There is a possibility that this actu-ally became more difficult for you ina way. And I don’t know what thatmeans but it’s like you just change.”

The show revolved around thelives of four socially awkward friends,Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj.

The show is aired in India on ZeeCafe and can be streamed on HOOQin India. =51� ��

Austrian Formula 1 racinglegend Andreas NiklausLauda passed away earlier

this week. He was more than alegend. His comeback from hisfiery accident at the oldNurburgring is one of the mostremarkable stories in sports, torace just six weeks after almostlosing your life is a great subjectfor a movie and it was made intoone. Rush documented the 1976Formula 1 World Championship.Lauda was not a flamboyant play-boy in the mould of many of theBritish racers of that era, but hewas good. So good that he madeanother comeback in the 1980swhen he drove a McLaren to histhird World title after winningtwo with Ferrari. We can alwayswonder how many world cham-pionships Lauda would have wonhad he not had his devastatingaccident or retired from the sportfor the first time, but his impacton the world of motorsport is pos-sibly much greater than his threetitles and his later role as theChairman of Mercedes-AMG F1Racing, the dominant team of thecontemporary Formula 1 era.

Lauda’s accident, somethinghe barely survived back in 1976,

ultimately claimed him. Its after-effects played a role in his deathas the flames and even the fireextinguisher fumes seared theinside of his lungs, causing per-manent damage. Ironically, ithappened despite the fact that theAustrian had led other drivers inprotesting the unsafe conditionsof the race. Jules Bianchi’s death

a couple of years ago was an aber-ration. When Niki Lauda was rac-ing at his prime, at least three-fourFormula 1 drivers died everyyear and drivers, fan and evenadministrators took that to be afact of life. Of course, the movetowards safety had begun in the1960s with drivers like JackieStewart, but Lauda supercharged

that movement. And while it wasfinally the dramatic events of theSan Marino Grand Prix in 1994when Ayrton Senna died thatfinally pushed the safety agendafor race cars and even road carsto the central agenda, the near-death of Niki Lauda is what real-ly pushed the safety agenda out ofthe fringes.

However, more than justbeing a great driver, Lauda’sdoggedness came out more dra-matically to the rest of the worldwhen he personally went to thecrash site of Lauda Air 004 inThailand.

Niki Lauda came from awealthy Austrian family and oncehe retired from the sport finally,he got into his other love, aviation.He began Lauda Air as an airlinecatering to tourists but it suffereda horrible accident when 196people died at that aforemen-tioned crash. Lauda himself wentto the site in order to give answersto those who died. And like theBoeing 737 MAX today, itemerged that there was a techni-cal fault that caused the crash. Itwas Lauda’s remarkable determi-nation and engineering skill thatgot Boeing to admit that theymade a mistake which caused thethrust reversers to open mid-flight causing the crash.

Lauda’s determination andskills will be missed from theFormula 1 circuit and as the gridcollects at the annual signaturerace in Monaco this year, I hopethe race car series sends him offin style to race in the heavens!

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The posh lanes of KhanMarket are somewhatakin to a food lover’s par-adise. And it is here that

I headed to Baar Baar, a dine-inrestaurant, as a writer and foodlover could indulge in her love forfusion dishes as the place offersIndian food with a modern twist.And was I in for a surprise anda change of view towards the wayan authentic Indian dish couldtaste.

The ambience, replete withcolours like magenta and teal,peppered with brass and wood-en decor, sets the tone for exper-imentation. It makes you recon-sider how Indian dishes could beprepared with a new outlook.

The first. I bit into the papad-like sweet potato, yam andbanana kadak naan and chaatcorn roti, served with sweet cornmousse and tomato sea buck-thorn chutney. The taste wassuch that it would remind one ofhummus and pita bread but at thesame time, forget it as this has adistinct flavour. The choppedcashews, sprinkled on the top,added flavour to the ‘perfectlybland’ yet the most tastefulmousse.

My confidence about thecurations by New York chefSujan Sarkar went up a notchfurther with the potato tikkiwhich was served next. Itwas nothing like the onesfound at the street sidechaat thela (vendor). Thecrispiest tikki, in the cen-tre was surrounded bybattered and deep-friedkale and spinach tempuraand had a sweet and souryoghurt mousse poured overits top. The taste could makeone wish that every thela shouldprepare the tikki that way. Butuniqueness was presumably thedrill, here. The next ensemblemade it very apparent.

Served with an ulta tawaparantha at its bottom, the cylin-drical duck seekh kebab wastopped with mixed berry chutneyand housemade pickles. Thekebab didn’t have the overtlynon-vegetarian taste yet was per-fectly meaty. A special alert forvegetarians. This one might just

make you wantto reconsider your food orienta-tion.

While I was still gorging onthe duck kebabs, sous chef HiteshLohat was keen on serving thebest under his domain. The beet-root and peanut chops wereserved with garlic, apricot andchilli chutney, greens and pickles.It reminded me of a crazy ball-sized coconut, brown, hard and

crispy on the outside, softerinside. Only the colour was dif-ferent— maroon instead ofwhite.

Pairing beer with the mealis usually seen as the most viableoption, however, one can’t helpbut look at the menu when it hasa wide range of cocktails tochoose from. I went for CalcuttaCup. The drink was an amalga-mation of bourbon and Islaysingle malt whiskey infused withflavours of mango ginger, honeysyrup and citrus. The cocktail,however, made only a littleimpact to my already impressedtastebuds as I felt the flavourscould have been stronger.

As I continued with the food,the baked truffle fries made theirway to my plate. These weretopped with cheese fondue andfried in truffle oil but the idea was

note xe -

c u t e dto perfec-

tion as theseappeared and tast-

ed more like potatowedges. The dried cheese didn’tmake too much of an impact.

With two disappointments ina row, I looked up to the nextdish, which was Malai broccoliand pumpkin, crispy lentil cakeand parmesan mousse mixed ina salad bowl. A vegetable loverlike me would absolutely drooleven at the very names of itsingredients, but the dish failed tomeet my gastronomic expecta-tions.

Next up was the chickenmalai tikka, topped with cheesefondue and walnut crumbs.Ideally, a perfect example offusion.

As I neared a saturation, thelast dish in line was the yoghurtapricot kofta served in dum gravyand with sea buckthorn papad-like breads and pickled apple. Thekofta, soft as cotton, could be anappropriate replacement forpaneer (cottage cheese) or usualkoftas — finally, a perfect fusion.

The speed of the service wasnot uniform. But I was lucky toget my desserts a bit late as afterall the food that I had, it tooktime for me to make some space.But desserts were worth the wait.The first one was the Thandaicassata, served with bits of tutty-fruity pistachios and black pep-per meringue. The crispy wafferson top melted in my mouth likecream. The cassata had my heart.

The second dessert was theCashew cake, served with milkice cream and apricot gel. Evenas the ice cream was a perfectreplacement to the vanilla, thecake could have had balanced itssweetness, which was a tad bit toomuch.

Cooking in the 21st century is oftenequated with new methods like

molecular gastronomy. However, atPAUL, they believe that there is noth-ing better than spending time with fam-ily and friends over a delicious meal.Located in the busy Ambience Mall,Gurugram, this restaurant will make youfall in love with the French cuisine. “Wereceived a set of rules and guideline fromPAUL International for everything.From the décor to the machines, whichwe are supposed to use and the recipes,”say chef Vipin (head pastry chef) andchef Lokesh (executive chef).

Before I talk about the food, I want-ed to elaborate on something that theplace exuded which made the visit morememorable. Here, they believe that“there is no sincerer love than that offood,” and they show it. There is love inthe food they bring to the table and itis evident in the way they treat theirguests and probably that’s the reasonwhy you don’t want to leave.

The ambience really seems to takeyou to one of the cafés along the walk-way in France. Sitting inside, you cansmell the breads baking, the coffee brew-ing and the aroma of decadent food. Thedécor is simple yet elegant and the smellof bakery in the air is comforting.

While I was just about sinking inthe experience, the first of the courseswas brought to the table. This were thesmoked salmon bites, traditionallyreferred as a tartine in French or sim-ply put, sliced and toasted baguettes,topped with ingredients.This tartine wasbite size, toasted baguettes, toppedwith a refreshing dill sour cream,smoked salmon and sprinkled with withcapers and mustard grains. The crunch-iness from the fresh baguette added abite to the dish while the creaminess ofthe sour cream and silkiness of thesalmon, melted in the mouth. Thecapers and the mustard grains further,enhanced and elevated the bites byadding a little pungency and saltiness.This dish was sophisticated and a per-fect appetite builder.

I was still savouring the flavour ofthe salmon bites when a whiff ofonions, freshly baked bread and cheesewafted through the air. The next thingI knew, a French onion soup wasplaced before me. Campagne breadserved as a bowl for the soup, where assoon as the lid was removed, I couldsmell the caramelised onions and thebaked cheese. The soup was essential-ly, a thick brown broth in which onionswere slow cooked. A sip revealed thatit contained the richness of onions,cheese and butter. This is what heavenis made of. The onions made the brothsweeter, however, it was balanced withthe saltiness that was provided by thecheese and butter. The soup was rich,wholesome and left a heavy coat on thepalate. Rest assured, the dish is boundto take you to your happy place.

In order to freshen things up, their

signature salad was served. Made up oficeberg lettuce, grilled chicken, finely-cut green apple, carrots and topped withwalnuts and emmental cheese, thissalad burst with goodness. It was sweet,salty, smoky and crunchy. There wasnothing to complain about here. Its sim-plicity marked its perfection.

Making the French experience evenbetter, the croque-monsieur made its wayto the table. It is the French version ofa ham and cheese sandwich. There wasextra cheese with fresh ham, servedalong-side crispy, golden-brown hashbrowns. One would realise why it’s aFrench classic as it makes you fall in lovewith food, all over again.

Next up was a Margherita pizza anda Pepperoni pizza. Pizzas at PAUL’s arehand-tossed and thin crust. TheMargherita one was topped with freshtomato sauce, mozzarella, parmesan andgarnished with basil leaves. As for thePepperoni pizza, it consisted of toma-to sauce topped with pork pepperoniand mozzarella. What was commend-able about both the pizzas, was the fresh-ness of ingredients that one could taste.Another thing that made them stand outwas the tomato sauce that was notentirely brought down to a liquid con-sistency. The tomatoes still have a biteto them which gives out a tanginess, thatwill make you ask for more.

The seafood mains were up next.

First, one on the table was the seafoodfettucini. The fish and whole prawnswere lightly tossed in tomato sauce thatgave the dish a vibrant orange colour.Taking a bite, the first flavour that coat-ed the palate was the tanginess of thesauce which gradually made way forthyme and buttery-ness. The seafoodadds an earthy and salty flavour to thepasta, balancing out the dish altogeth-er. The second seafood dish was PAUL’ssignature, the grilled tiger prawns. Theslightly charred prawns presented on abed of nutty romesco sauce (made withsweet red pepper), served with butteredveggies, is bound to sweep you off yourfeet. A little sweet-heat from theromesco sauce with the tiger prawns,cooked to perfection, sings in harmo-ny on your palate.

Last but definitely not the least ofthe mains, was the roasted baby chick-en. This dish is to die for. Sous-videchicken, cooked off in the pan, servedwith some veggies and a salad toppedwith a pepper jus. The sous-vide cook-ing process helps the chicken retain allits juices while cooking. While cuttingthe chicken on the plate, I realised thatthere was crispy skin which crackles asthe knife slices through it. Taking a bite,the skin was crunchy while the chick-en underneath it was tender andreleased all its juices as you bite in. Thepepper added a layer over the chickenand binds the dish together. To cutthrough the richness of the dish, thesalad on the side helped.

To end the evening on a sweet note,desserts were served — Tiramisu anda Strawberry cheesecake. The tiramisuwas as authentic as it could get. However,to take the traditional creation one stepfurther, Kalhua was added to the bat-ter. The flavour of the coffee wasstronger and more rustic, pertaining tothe premium Lavazza espresso shotsused in the making. Tiramisu is definite-ly a choice for the ones who don’t havemuch of a sweet tooth and love coffee.For the ones who like their dessertssweet, the strawberry cheesecake is yourchoice. The buttery cracker base toppedwith vanilla cheesecake and finishedwith strawberry crush, was beautiful,airy and light. Just the perfect way to endthe evening!

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Hosts England and TeamIndia have been touted as

favourites to go the distance inthe 2019 edition of the WorldCup. But Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan iskeen to remind all that cricketis a game that is played on thefield and not on paper.

Shakib said that while thereis no doubt that Eoin Morganand Virat Kohli's men are rul-ing world cricket at the momentin the 50-over format, thefavourites tag alone doesn'twin any team the coveted titlein the 50-over World Cup.

"India and England areobviously favourites, but thatdoesn't get you the crown. Youneed to do the hard yards towin a tournament like theWorld Cup. Australia have beendoing well recently and WestIndies have peaked at the righttime. To be honest, all theteams look like they are readyfor a fight. Depends who onthat day does well," he pointed.

Personally, Shakib got theperfect boost going into theshowpiece event as he overtookAfghanistan star Rashid Khanas the No 1 all-rounder inODIs. But for the starBangladesh player, he wants the

trophy that ultimately decideswho the boss is.

"This time I think we havea genuine chance of winningthe tournament, but keepingthe format of the tournament inmind, we must look to play wellconsistently. If we can do that,we can definitely look at qual-ifying for the knockouts andtake it forward from there. I amconfident that we will do wellthis time.

"Personally, obviously Iwish that Bangladesh win thetrophy this time. But a lot offactors need to click togetherfor that dream to be realised.While I didn't play much in theIPL, I had been working hardon my game and was looking toprepare for the World Cup.Gave it my all in the practicesessions and tried to maximisethe output in every training ses-sion," he explained.

While Bangladesh have inthe last few years made a namefor themselves in the big leagueby putting in far more consis-tent performances than before,but Shakib is still a bit worriedwith the team's bowling attack.The all-rounder though feelsthat the experience in the sidewill come to the rescue incrunch games.

"I think we have a very

good side, I am a little worriedabout the bowling, both newball and the death. But I amvery much optimistic that wecan go the whole length. Wehave experience, have guyswho have played 3 or 4 WorldCups. It is a good thing as weknow what we need to do.Need to get the momentumearly on. I am confident.Anyone can beat anyone ontheir day. Consistency is animportant factor to go all theway," he revealed.

With the advent of thevarious T20 leagues,Bangladesh players are nowgetting an opportunity to rubshoulders with some of the bestplayers in the world. In fact,they also have their own T20league and Shakib feels this hashelped in getting quality play-ers to play for the country astalent can be identified betternow thanks to so many plat-forms.

"I feel playing in the T20leagues around the world hasreally helped our boys in recenttimes as you gain in experience.Apart from building your owngame, you also get to see otherstars closely and try and learnfrom them as well. It hashelped us become more com-petitive as a unit," he smiled.

4 �#�G Captain CristianoRonaldo was included inPortugal's squad for nextmonth's Nations League semi-final against Switzerland, headcoach Fernando Santosannounced on Thursday.

Ronaldo, 34, a five-timeBallon d'Or winner missed thegroup stages preferring to tryand adapt to life in Juventussince moving from RealMadrid.

The Euro 2016 championswelcome the Swiss on June 5in Porto and the Netherlandsplay England in Guimaraes aday later before a third placeplay-off and a final on June 9.

He lifted the Serie A titlewith his Italian club this sea-son but failed to clinch a thirdstraight Champions Leagueafter losing to Ajax in thequarter-finals.

Head coach FernandoSantos has chosen not to callup veterans Adrien Silva,Nani and Ricardo Quaresmaand Sevilla forward AndreSilva misses out with a kneeinjury.

Highly-tipped Benficauncapped youngster JoaoFelix is also included along-side three other club team-mates who won the Portugeseleague champions this season.

Portugal squad to faceSwitzerland on June 5 in theNations League semis. AFP

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Six-time world champion MaryKom overcame some stiff resis-

tance to beat promising NikhatZareen in a split decision to enterthe women's 51kg category final,while the men pugilists dominatedthe ring by making it an all-IndianGold-medal clash in seven cate-gories in the India Open here onThursday.

In the most-anticipated bout ofthe day, 22-year-old former worldjunior champion Nikhat ofTelangana was at her aggressive bestagainst her 'idol' Mary Kom whowas happy to play the waitinggame before taking the upper handin the third round to win 4-1.

The 36-year-old Mary Kom,who was making her competitivedebut at home in 51kg, took someblows initially but was quick tomake amends as Nikhat was notable to connect her punches as thebout progressed.

Using her vast experience, MaryKom regained her composure anddealt a few telling blows on theStrandja Memorial Gold winnerNikhat and that seemed to haveclinched the issue in favour of theLondon Olympics Bronze medallistManipuri in the third round.

Mary Kom will face VanlalDuati of Mizoram in the Gold-medal bout on Friday.

In the men's section, 17 Indiansstormed into the final in 10 weightcategories.

Continuing his dream run, for-mer world youth champion SachinSiwach registered an upset winover reigning CommonwealthGames champion Gaurav Solanki ina unanimous decision to set up a51kg gold medal clash againstAsian Games Gold medalist AmitPanghal.

A day after he eliminated WorldChampionship Bronze medalistRogen Ladon in a well-calculatedbout, the 20-year-old from Haryanahad his task cut out against his spar-ring partner but he again emergedvictorious.

Panghal, who had clinched aGold in his new weight category inthe Asian Championship, defeatednational champion P L Prasad in thesecond 52kg semifinal. Panghalhad won the Asian Games Gold inJakarta last year in 49kg.

"Amit has improved a lot of late

but this is my big chance to showmy prowess at a major competition.I hope to give my best and returnwinner," Siwach, who won a Bronzeat the GeeBee Boxing tournamentin Finland in March, said.

Shiva Thapa also remained oncourse to clinching a Gold at thesame venue where he was crownednational champion three years agoas he fended off a strong challengefrom his Polish opponent DKrystian Sczepanski to emerge 5-0winner.

Sczepanski was at his aggressivebest and kept hurling punches butShiva cleverly kept frustrating hisopponent by going out of his range.

"It made him tired at the end ofevery round. I was playing my style,did not give my 100 per cent. I wasjust trying to be tactical with himand let his punches go in the air andmiss it so that he loses his controland confidence," Shiva said.

He will face Manish Kaushik inthe 60kg final on Friday.

There was also a setback instore for India in the men's 75kg cat-egory, when Manjeet Panghal twist-ed his knee in the first round to beknocked out by his Filipino oppo-nent Eumir Felix Delos Santosh.

Santosh will face Ashish Kumarin the final.

Former Asian championChatchai Decha Butdee of Thailandalso created an upset in the men's56kg by ousting former WorldChampionship Bronze medalistGaurav Bidhuri in a unanimousdecision. The Thai will take onKavinder Singh Bisht in the final.

The 64kg category will also seea non-Indian in the final withRohit Tokas taking on Colin LouisRicharno of Mauritius.

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Alex Hales insists he will still sup-port England at the upcoming

World Cup despite his shock exilefrom international cricket.

The Nottinghamshire batsmanwas on course to feature for WorldCup hosts England until a report inthe Guardian newspaper last monthrevealed he was serving a 21-day banfollowing a second positive test forrecreational drug use.

The England and Wales CricketBoard responded to the report byannouncing that Hales, a member ofthe provisional World Cup squad, hadbeen withdrawn from internationalduty.

Hales, 30, is now turning hisattention instead to a stint with theBarbados Tridents in the seventhseason of the Caribbean PremierLeague.

The hard-hitting batsman, speak-ing after being selected as the first pickin the draft for the Twenty20 franchisecompetition staged in London onWednesday, said he still wantedEngland to win the World Cup in hisabsence.

"I'm still a fan and wish all theboys all the best. What we have done

over the last few years has beenunbelievable," Hales said in an inter-view broadcast by Sky Sports.

"I will be (keeping an eye on theWorld Cup). The guys deserve to winit and I'll be sat there watching andcheering."

As for his feelings about his WorldCup exile, confirmed when Hales wasleft out of England's 15-man tourna-ment squad announced Tuesday, hesimply added: "I'm not here to talkabout that."

The CPL draft saw Hales select-ed ahead of West Indies captain JasonHolder and star batsman Chris Gayle,with the competition starting onSeptember 4.

"I just want to get back playingwhat I love most and that's cricket,"Hales, now a white-ball specialist,added.

"This is such a good opportunityto go and play at a ground where Ihave such fond memories of — theKensington Oval — and play in a bigtournament in some different condi-tions.

"I've got a few things to do withthe English Cricket Board (ECB),there's obviously a process to gothrough and then I start training Iguess."

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Jofra Archer, the Englandpaceman, has come in for

high praise from India captainVirat Kohli, who said hewould be the "X factor" forEngland at the ICC Men'sCricket World Cup 2019.

Kohli was speaking dur-ing the Captain's Day inLondon, alongside the skip-pers of the other 10 teams,when it was put to him thatArcher, after being confirmedin England's final 15-mansquad, had said he was eyeingthe Indian captain's wicket."I'd quite like to get ViratKohli out because I wasn't ableto in the IPL," he told SkySports.

Kohli wasn't aware of that,but the Indian captain madeit a point to laud the all-rounder, who was fast-trackedinto the England squad for thetournament, having notplayed an ODI prior to thenaming of their preliminarysquad.

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"Did he say that? I had noidea - that's news to me. It'snews to Morgs as well," Kohlisaid with a smile. "We don'treally focus on these things.We don't really focus onwhether an individual wantsto get you out or whetheryou're spoken of more orthings like that.

"Our focus is on con-tributing to the team. I take alot of pride in performing forthe team, and making impactperformances in every game.If Jofra said that, it's a bigcompliment. Because he him-self is a world-class bowler."

Kohli went on describe hisobservations of Archer duringtheir clashes in the IndianPremier League. "The wayhe's come about in the IPL thelast couple of years I've seen

him, there's good reason whyhe was fast-tracked into play-ing for England in a tourna-ment like the World Cup," saidKohli.

"I think he's probablygoing to be their X factor,because he holds a skillsetthat's very different from any-one else. He can generate a lotof pace, which can be intim-idating. You don't reallyexpect that because of hisrun-up.

"And the way he's built, he'sa great athlete. He's going to bea delight to watch in the WorldCup. I personally would bewatching his bowling as well -whatever I've seen of him, he'sbeen very, very impressive."

Eoin Morgan, the Englandcaptain, who was sat right nextto Kohli, concurred and addedthat it was a huge opportunityfor Archer. "Nothing's sur-prised me about him. He'scome in and performed exact-ly how he has been around theworld," said Morgan. "He'simpressive in all three parts ofa 50-over game, he gives you anoption in different areas, andobviously has that extra bit ofpace.

"It is a huge opportunity.The guy is very young, veryambitious, very confident,wants to play internationalcricket for England. That'sextremely exciting. He's at thevery start of his internationalcareer, and it so happens that it'sat the start of the World Cupand Ashes year, and he couldpotentially have lots of timeplaying. It's extremely exciting.

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FIFA shelved a proposed expansionof the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to

48 teams, dealing a blow to the worldfootball body's president GianniInfantino.

The 2022 tournament in the Gulfstate will now be played with 32nations taking part.

FIFA said it had abandoned theexpansion plans "following a thoroughand comprehensive consultationprocess" which led to the conclusionthat "under the current circumstancessuch a proposal could not be madenow".

"(The tournament) will thereforeremain as originally planned with 32teams and no proposal will be submit-ted at the next FIFA Congress on 5June," FIFA said in a statement.

The expansion was a pet project ofInfantino, who pushed the idea despitethe likely need for Qatar's neighboursto put aside a two-year blockade andhelp to host an expanded tournament.

"The involvement of these coun-tries in the organisation of the tour-nament jointly with Qatar implies thelifting of this blockade, in particularthe lifting of restrictions on the move-ment of people and goods," said a fea-sibility study submitted to March'sFIFA Congress in Miami.

The study also claimed that aQatar World Cup with 48 teamswould generate "between $300-$400

million (265-354 million euros) ofadditional income".

Specifically FIFA was counting onan additional $120 million in TVrights, $150 million in marketingrights and $90 million from ticketsales.

The news comes after Europe's topfootball clubs said in March theywould boycott an expanded 24-teamClub World Cup — also backed byInfantino — which is planned to takeplace in June and July 2021, replacingthe Confederations Cup tournament.

An announcement of the finaldecision had not been expected untilnext month's FIFA Congress to be heldin Paris ahead of the women's WorldCup that takes place in France betweenJune 7 and July 7.

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Alivid Mary Kom on Thursdayasked her vanquished oppo-

nent Nikhat Zareen to prove her-self in the ring instead of makingirritating comments.

Mary was reacting to formerworld junior champion Nikhat'scomments in the media that shewas excited to take on her 'idol'and she would "put up a strongfight by using her brain" in theIndia Open 51kg semifinals whichthe celebrated Manipuri boxerwon on Thursday.

"Every bout is a new experi-ence for me. Even I don't knowwho this girl is. I've been fightingsince many years now. I clearly

want to say I don't want all this.It has come out in the newspapersthat she's challenging me," MaryKom said after beating Nikhat toenter the 51kg final.

Mary Kom beat 22-year-oldNikhat 4-1 in a split decision.

"First you prove inside thering and then speak out (againstme). She has won just one medalat the international level and suchis her ego and attitude! They feelproud and satisfied. This is a verybad habit," the 36-year-old MaryKom said.

"How many years I've com-peted for the country? And howmany times I've proved? It's bet-ter to say in a mild way. They areso lucky fighting with me. They

will get more experience," theLondon Olympics Bronze medal-list continued.

Mary Kom, however, saidNikhat's comments made hermore determined.

"I was so surprised to read hercomments in the newspaper. It'sso irritating. How can they say allthis. Yes, everyone has the right tosay and anyone can challenge. ButI'm also a human being. It causesa lot of disturbance. Never mind,it made me more determined todo well."

Told that Nikhat consideredher as her idol, May Kom said:"Why they challenge me then?Idol means you have to showrespect, talk with respect."

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