DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA 158 197 73 Naveen hits back at BJP: Pandian not my successor, all falsehood CM Naveen Patnaik; V K Pandian SUJIT BISOYI BHUBANESWAR, MAY 30 WITH THE BJP turning up the heat on the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD over the growing influence of his aide and former bureaucrat V K Pandian, the Odisha Chief Minister on Thursday sought to make it clear that Pandian was not his “successor”, and speculation suggesting this was “an exaggeration”. "I can’t understand these exaggerations. You may have noticedthatheisnotevenstanding for elections,” said Patnaik while speaking to ANI in Bhubaneswar, when asked whether Pandian was being groomed to take over from him. Asked whether Pandian was his successor, he said, “He is not my successor. And I see all of this asexaggerationsandfalsehoods.” On whether his party has a succession plan, Patnaik reiterated that the successor “will be decided by the people of the state; that is the natural result in these things” — comments that echo what his father and former chief minister Biju Patnaik once said. The former CM had never promoted anyone from his family in politics, and Naveen and a few other loyalists had formed the Biju Janata Dal following his deathtocarryforwardhislegacy. Responding to allegations made by his opponents that Pandian was now taking all key decisionsonPatnaik’sbehalf,the Odisha CM said this was “ridiculous” and an “old allegation that holds no weight”. Patnaik’sremarksonPandian assume significance since the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NETWORK START-UP CARRIES OUT TEST FLIGHT OF AGNIBAAN ROCKET PAGE 6 PAGE 1 ANCHOR `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Curtains on Campaign 2024 In final poll speech, Modi attacks Opp, says his Govt about to get a ‘hat-trick’ ANJU AGNIHOTRI CHABA & VIKAS PATHAK JALANDHAR, NEW DELHI, MAY 30 HOURS BEFORE the curtain came down Thursday on campaigning DECISION for the Lok 2024 Sabha polls, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, launching a frontal assault on the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling AAP in Punjabonefinaltimethiselection, invokedGuruRavidasandsaidhis government had worked in line withtheteachingsandprinciples of the Bhakti poet-saint. Addressing a rally in HoshiarpurinPunjabwhichwill APPEAL TO PUNJAB Manmohan on Modi: ‘Vicious hate speeches’, lowered PM office dignity BUSINESS AS USUAL Targeted a section of society, says former PM BY UNNY MANOJ CG NEW DELHI, MAY 30 voteSaturdayintheseventhand finalphaseof theelections,Modi referred to Hoshiarpur, home to a sizeable number from the Ravidassia and Valmiki communities, as “chhoti Kashi”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BEGINS 45-HOUR MEDITATION Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers prayers at the Sri Bhagavathi Amman Temple in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, before beginning his 45-hour meditation at the Vivekananda Memorial on Thursday. PTI REPORT,PAGE6 PM campaign about himself, abusing Cong; INDIA will form govt: Kharge ASAD REHMAN NEW DELHI, MAY 30 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addresses a public meeting in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Punjab, on Thursday. ANI EXPRESSING CONFIDENCE that theINDIAblocwillformthegovernment with absolute majority after June 4, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the BJP campaign all about himself while hurling abuses at the Congress and the INDIA bloc. Addressing a press conferenceatthepartyheadquartersin Delhi on Thursday, the Congress chief said, “I will tell you a sam- PORSCHE CRASH Probe: Pune minor’s blood sample replaced with his mother’s sample ANURADHA MASCARENHAS & CHANDAN HAYGUNDE DECISION 2024 election will be remembered for a long time. “The PM and top leaders of the BJP have made innumerable attempts to divide people on the basis of religion and divisive issues and divert their attention. Despite this, the people chose issues and we sought votes on issues,” he said. The Congress has always thought about the problems of the people and worked towards them, he said. “Wetookissueslikeinflation, unemployment, condition of farmers, economic inequality, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Only the second ● time THE SEVENTH and final phase of polling concludes Saturday and the results will be declared on June 4. This is only the second time that Lok Sabha elections have extended into June. The 44-day election period, necessitated by a combination of factors, is the secondlongest after the first Lok Sabha election in 1951-52. AS CAMPAIGNING for the Lok Sabha elections came to a close Thursday,formerPrimeMinister Manmohan Singh accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of havingdeliveredthe“mostvicious” form of “purely divisive” “hate speeches” during his electioneering, lowering the dignity of public discourse and gravity of his office. “No Prime Minister in the past has uttered such hateful, unparliamentary and coarse terms, meant to target either a specific section of the society or the opposition ... People of India areseeingthroughallof this.This narrativeof dehumanizationhas now reached its peak. It is now our duty to save our beloved nation from these forces of discord,” Singh said in an appeal, meant for the people of Punjab, which is voting in the last phase on June 1. The rare intervention by the 91-year-old former Prime Minister, who headed the UPA government from 2004 to 2014, came at the end of the bitter and gruelling campaign which had seen Modi repeatedly targeting Singh’s UPA government claiming that the Congress wanted to allocate15%of thegovernment’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Dadar zoo claims to have CZA permit; authority begins probe NAYONIKA BOSE MUMBAI, MAY 30 EXPRESSINTERVIEW ‘FightnotBJPvsCongress, butBJPvspeople...no threattoCongressgovt’ SUKHVINDER SINGH SUKHU, HIMACHAL CM PUNE, MAY 30 THEBLOODsampleof theminor, who was allegedly driving the Porsche that crashed into and killed two people in Pune on May 19, was replaced at Sassoon General Hospital with a sample given by his mother, sources in the Maharashtra government said, citing an inquiry report. While the minor was taken into custody after the accident, and his father and grandfather were subsequently arrested, the focussoonshiftedtotheinvolvement of two doctors and a class IVstaffer—fromBJGovernment Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital — who are accused of throwing away the blood sample collected from the minor and replacing it with an- ple.In15days,hetookCongress’s name 232 times, he used ‘Modi’ 758 times… He named the INDIA alliance 573 times… He didn’tsayanythingaboutunemployment and inflation…” “The PM spoke about temples-mosques,Muslimandother religions 421 times. He spoke about dividing society. He spoke about Muslim, Pakistan and minorities 224 times,” Kharge said. He also said they (Congress) are “confident that on June 4, the peoplewillgiveamandateforan alternate government”. Kharge said this Lok Sabha E E X P L A I NE D 130 REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2024, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES 31/05/2024 ● ● On Bengal poll street, local corruption trumps other issues A notice at a liquor shop in Pune states that liquor will not be sold to anyone under 25 years. Pavan Khengre other. The two doctors and the staffer have also been arrested. On Tuesday, a special investigation team was sent to Sassoon hospital, where they questioned a series of officials and viewed the CCTV footage. Sources in the government told The Indian Express that the team submitted an inquiry report saying that it was the boy’s motherwhohadgivenherblood sample to replace her son’s. According to the sources, the inquiryalsofoundthattheblood CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGES 8, 9 THE CITY HOARDINGCOLLAPSE: ENGINEERWHO GAVESTRUCTURAL STABILITYCERTIFICATE ARRESTED PAGE 3 A BOARD welcoming visitors at the privately-run Marine Aqua Zoo in the heart of the city near Dadar’s Shivaji Park reads, “Recognised by Central Zoo Authority”.However,responseto an RTI query filed by The Indian Express and an official confirmation from CZA officials revealed that the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) — the country’s nodal agency for issuing permissions andmaintainingoversightofzoos — has not issued any permission to the Dadar zoo. It has also initiatedaninquiryintoitsoperations. A team of officials from the forest department visited the zoo to conduct an investigation on Thursday and seized some animals, according to a source privy to the probe. In the RTI response, the CZA said that no approval for operat- The private zoo at Dadar displays recognition by the Central Zoo Authority; (right) the Argentine black and white tegu inside a cage at the zoo. Ganesh Shirsekar inghasbeenissuedtotheMarine AquaZoo,whichisalsoknownas the Dadar Prani Sanghralaya. Speaking to The Indian Express, Dr Sanjay Kumar Shukla, member secretary of CZA, said, “Neither has the zoo approached nor have we given them any recognition. We have received a complaint against the zoo and we have written to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘A time when women want to cheer for each other more than ever’ DEVYANI ONIAL NEW DELHI, MAY 30 THE ELEGANT and pastel interiors of the Indian Navy's Kota House in Delhi have a pop of colour and glamour today. Anasuya Sengupta, fresh from Cannes where she won the award for the Best Actress in the Un Certain Regards category at theCannesFilmFestival,thefirst Indian to bag the honour, has madeastopintheCapital,where her husband, Lt Cdr Yashdeep Sharma, is posted. "I was just happy that meri picture Cannes jaa rahi hai (My film is going to Cannes). I didn’t want anything more. That was myexcitementandjoy,andthen came the reception to my film. People loved the film, they would come up to me on the streets and were appreciative of my performance. But I felt that something more was at play, something deeper was resonating and I think it’s because this is a film where women are at the forefront. It’s giving people a sense of hope. My film has an almostangryfeminismbutPayal’s (Kapadia) film is gentle and beautifulbuttheyarebothabout feminism,” she says. Kapadia’sfilm,AllWeImagine AsLight,thatwontheGrandPrix, the second highest award at Cannes, too, has women at its centre. “It’s a time when we, more than ever, want to support each other,it’satimeforfriendship,of cheering each other on loudly, being there for each other. It is going even beyond cinema. Honestly, I am seeing it everywhere. We want women at the forefront. There is deep value in it.” she says. In Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless, a film in Hindi, Sengupta plays Renuka who runs away from a brothel in Delhi after killing a policeman and gets involved with a young girl, a sex worker. For Sengupta, justgoingtoCanneswasenough, getting the best actress award was overwhelming. It was all that she imagined and more. It was about cinema and glamour, about being next to legendary filmmakers,abouttheredcarpet andbuyinga25-Eurodressfrom the flea market to wear at the Anasuya Sengupta in New Delhi on Thursday. Tashi Tobgyal ceremony. But, as she emphasises, it’s not just about the yachts and glamour, love of cin- ema is at the core of Cannes. The film also marks Sengupta’s transition from working behind the camera as a production designer to facing it. It came more than 10 years after she first acted in Anjan Dutt's Madly Bangalee (2009), a film about a rock band which featuredmanymembersof TinCan, thetheatre groupin Kolkata that Sengupta was part of. "Acting in Madly Bangalee was, of course, very different from now. I was fresh out of college and working on that film was like hanging out with friends. It didn’t feel like acting," saysSengupta,whograduatedin English from Jadavpur University.Herfirstjobwaswith a magazine called Kindle and within three months, she quit to work as a director’s assistant to Claire McCarthy in the IndoAustralian production The Waiting City that was being shot in Kolkata. That was her first foray in films and soon she moved to Mumbai where her brother,afilmmaker,lived.“Ihad just these two experiences but I thoughtthatwas enoughammo to move to Mumbai,” she says. There, she did theatre and a few ads, worked as an assistant director and went on to become a production designer for films and series such as Saat Uchakkey, Ray, Chippa and the first season of Masaba Masaba, among others. “It wasn’t profoundly planned or a strategy. It just flowed from one to the other,” she says. Wearingsomanyhatscomes easy to her. “I had a typical Bengali upbringing. There were drawing lessons, music lessons, elocution, the works,” she says. Her doctor father and teacher motherenabledanenvironment that was conducive to the arts. In fact, it was her art that got her the role in The Shameless. In 2020, a few months after the initial lockdown, Sengupta, who had been toying with the idea of doing less film work and more art and of moving to Goa, where there is a thriving artist community and where she felt welcome, finally took the plunge. As a graphic artist, she started drawing actively. Director Bojanov, who was a Facebook friend, followed her work, took note of her and eventually approached her for the role. Sengupta was taken aback but soon realised he was serious. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2