DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2024, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 WILLGOTOPRESIDENTTOMORROW to stake claim to form govt at the Centre NOCLARITYONSWEARING-INDATE, Modi may attend TDP’s Andhra ceremony NDA elects Modi, to stake claim Biden, Putin, Sunak call Modi; Ranil & Hasina invited to swearing-in Message from INDIA bloc: Mandate a reply to the BJP, will keep watch on Modi Govt SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JUNE 5 US PRESIDENT Joe Biden called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday and congratulated him and the NDA on theirvictory,andthe“nearly650 million voters in this historic election”. After the call, Modi said in a post on X: “Happy to receive call from my friend President @JoeBiden. Deeply value his warm words of felicitations and his appreciation for Indian democracy.ConveyedthatIndiaUS Comprehensive Global Partnership is poised to witness manynewlandmarksintheyears to come. Our partnership will continue to be a force for global goodforthebenefitofhumanity.” In a post on X, President Biden said, “Congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the National Democratic Alliance on their victory, and the nearly 650 million voters in this historic election. The friendship between our nations is only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential.” Besides Biden, Russian PresidentVladimirPutin,French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Egypt President Abdel Fatah El Sisi were among the world leaders who congratulated Prime Minister Modi for the victory of the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde during the meeting of NDA leaders at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday. ANI Rajnath, Shah, Nadda Ally TDP likely to demand special tasked by Modi to hold status for Andhra, Cabinet berths talks with partners SREENIVAS JANYALA VERDICT 2024 HYDERABAD, JUNE 5 LIZ MATHEW & MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL NEW DELHI, JUNE 5 A DAY after the BJP lost majority and the NDA secured 293 seats in the new Lok Sabha, the alliance Wednesday elected Narendra Modi as its leader and decided to stake claim to form the government. Modi, on his part, assured partners that the NDA will work withgreaterstrengthtoattainits goal of a Viksit Bharat. Led by Modi, the NDA is expected to go to Rashtrapati Bhavan Friday to stake claim. On Wednesday, President Droupadi Murmu dissolved the 17th Lok Sabha on the advice of the Union Cabinet, according to BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi tendered his resignation to President Murmu who accepted it and asked him CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A SPECIAL Category Status for Andhra Pradesh, Cabinet berths including for his son in the new government, and funds for Amaravati capital city he had originally planned, are the key demands that Telugu Desam Party will make as talks commence over the formation of a BJP-led coalition government at the Centre. Led by N Chandrababu Naidu, TDP put up a stellar performance in Andhra Pradesh, winning 16 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats it contested and bagging 135 seats of the total 175 in the Assembly polls. With BJP falling shortof thehalf-waymarkatthe Centre,theTDP,whichhadaprepoll alliance with the saffron party, is the second-largest constituent of the NDA, giving it a ● Naveen era ends, all eyes on BJP’s CM pick ● The three ministries JDU will have its eyes on EXPLAINED ● Special Category Question PAGES 4, 12 & 14 strong bargaining hand. A day after he spearheaded the landslide win, Naidu on Wednesday dismissed rumours of a possible switch to the INDIA bloc and affirmed that he is still a part of the NDA. “I am going to New Delhi to attend the NDA meeting. I will let you know if there are any other developments,” he said before taking a flighttothenationalcapitalfrom Andhra. He attended the NDA meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the evening. Sources said the TDP chief is likely to seek Special Category Status (SCS) for Andhra, an issue over which he had walked out of theNDAin2018.TheSCSwillensure the state gets most of the Central funds in the form of grants(whichdonotcarryanyinterest) and industrial incentives including tax exemptions, duty waivers, and GST concessions. The TDP chief is also likely to seek additional funds from the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Seat that gave Himanta heartburn, Nine of 13 being probed and Gogoi many reasons to smile by Central agencies jumped party, lost polls SUKRITA BARUAH GUWAHATI, JUNE 5 NEW DELHI, JUNE 5 Congress candidate Gaurav Gogoi along with his supporters in Jorhat on Tuesday. ANI ity, overdoses of leaders and arrogantspeechesdoesnotalways help to win elections.” This invited Sarma’s ire, and he suggested that Saikia would soon leave the BJP for the Congress. Speaking to The Indian Express,Saikia,aBJPveteranwho CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 FROM YAMINI JADHAV of the Shiv Sena Shinde faction in Maharashtra to BJP’s Tapas Roy in West Bengal, from Pradeep Yadav of the Congress in Jharkhand to BJP’s Jyothi Mirdha in Rajasthan, nine of the 13 turncoat candidates or their family members being probed by investigative agencies, lost in the Lok Sabha elections whose results were declared Tuesday. Of these nine who lost, as many as seven belonged to the BJP or its allies. There were more than 150 turncoats — politicians who E EXPLAINED JORHAT MAY be just one of 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, but Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi’s commanding victory there — in a contest where the BJP ran its most aggressive campaign and where Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma led from the front — will sting the state leadership the most. Moresosinceithasprompted rare dissent from within — soon after Gogoi’s victory, a BJP MLA saidpubliclythat“arrogance”had cost his party the seat. In a social media post Tuesday evening, BJP’s Khumtai MLA Mrinal Saika called Gogoi’s win “amazing” and “significant” and wrote: “The outcome proved that money, big public- DEEPTIMAN TIWARY shifted from one political party to another — in the fray in the elections that concluded on Saturday.Of these,13candidates or their family members are facing probes either by the Central Bureauof Investigation(CBI),the Income Tax Department or the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Of the 13, eight had switched sides to the BJP — seven from Congress and one from Trinamool Congress; two had switched sides to the Shiv Sena ● Shinde faction from the Shiv Sena, one switched to TDP from YSRCP; and two to Congress from the Jharkhand VikasPartyandPEP,respectively. Of the eight under agency scanner who joined the BJP, six CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NETWORK UTTARKASHI: FIVE TREKKERS FROM KARNATAKA DEAD, FOUR MISSING PAGE 11 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav after the INDIA bloc meeting in Delhi, Wednesday. Anil Sharma We will take appropriate steps at the appropriate time: Kharge after meet EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JUNE 5 BOLSTERED BY the gains in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, top leaders of the Opposition INDIA bloc met Wednesday and indicated a restraint rather than a proactive pushtoexploregovernmentformation. While the Congress was not in a mood to scout for numbersnow,someof theparties,including the Shiv Sena and Trinamool Congress, leaned on the side of exploring options. Almost all the leaders who attended the meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence felt the people’s mandate was against the BJP, the fact — many of them underscored — nevertheless is that theBJPhasemergedasthesingle largest party and the NDA, a prepoll coalition, has crossed the halfway mark. The majority view, at the end of the meeting, was that the INDIA bloc should wait and watch for now. Calling the mandate a reply totheBJPgovernment,thecoalition resolved to “continue to fight against the fascist rule of the BJP led by (Narendra) Modi”. “We will take appropriate steps at the appropriate time to realise the people’s desire not to be ruled by the BJP’s government. This is our decision,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, reading out a joint statement of the alliance. Thefirstdraftofthestatement was vague on the Opposition’s willingness to explore options, now or later. At the instance of several leaders, the draft was revisedandthelinethatitwilltake “appropriate steps at the appropriatetime”torealisethepeople’s desirenottoberuledbytheBJP’s government was added. The choice of words in the INDIAblocstatementontheverdict was interesting as it said the “people’s mandate has given a CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 How 44 are NEET toppers because of a wrong answer, wrong textbook DEEKSHA TERI NEW DELHI, JUNE 5 OF THE 67 candidates who got a perfect score (720/720) in the 2024 NEET-UG results announced by the NTA Tuesday, as manyas44madeittothetopbecause, ironically, they got an answer to a basic physics question wrong — and received “grace marks” for that. Reason: their wrong answer was based on an incorrect reference in their old Class 12 NCERT science textbook. Since 2019, there haven’t been more than three toppers in any year of NEET UG, which is thesinglegatewayforadmission to all MBBS programmes in the country. In 2019 and 2020, there wasonetoppereach.Therewere three toppers in 2021, one in 2022, and two last year. However, this year, a multiple-choice Physics question on atoms opened the floodgates for high scores. The question was based on two statements. The first said: “Atomsareelectricallyneutralas they contain equal numbers of positive and negative charges.” The second statement said: “Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.” Candidates were asked to choose the “most appropriate CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 On Adhir upset, Pathan says ‘felt same tension’ before 2007 India-Pak final PAGE 1 ANCHOR DEVENDRA PANDEY MUMBAI, JUNE 5 AT BAHARAMPUR in West Bengal, Yusuf Pathan was facing pressureof adifferentkindwhen he got a call from a friend who wanted to check on him. On his political debut, Pathan was taking on five-time MP and Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and the votes were being counted. “I had felt the same tension before the 2007 India-Pakistan World T20 final in South Africa. That helped and I knew that I could handle it,” Pathan, the cricketer turned TMC politician, told The Indian Express while driving to Kolkata to meet his party chief Mamata Banerjee. The two similar days in the 41-year-old’s storied life both ended in famous wins. In 2007, M S Dhoni’s young team, in which the all-rounder playedakeyrole,wentontowin the inaugural World T20 title against all expectations. Seventeen years later, on Tuesday, Pathan once again provedtobeagiantkiller,polling 5,24,516 votes to defeat the Congress party’s most vocal MP Chowdhury by 85,022 votes. A day after the triumph, the Baroda resident, who was labelledduringthe2024LokSabha electioncampaignbyhisrivalsas an“outsider”,appearedtobesettlinginthenewroleasapeople’s representative.“Nervousnesson a big day is not new. But as time passes, things start getting normal. It is like when I walk out to bat on debut... the more you stay atthecrease,themorethingsget normal.Ascountingwentalong, things started easing. I was confidentthatpeoplewouldvotefor me, the rallies I did, the love I got Former cricketer and TMC candidate Yusuf Pathan after winning the elections from Baharampur on Tuesday. PTI was amazing,” Pathan said. ‘Pathan in Parliament’ could now possibly be the title of the latest chapter of the endearing fairytale about the son of a muezzin who worked and stayed at Baroda’s famous Jama Masjid. To raise the family that had two budding cricketers — Yusuf and his younger brother Irfan — Pathan Sr also sold ‘ittar’ outside the masjid, worked at a chemical factory and, at times, even drove an auto-rickshaw. Irfan, too, played for the country and the two brothers together have three World titles. Yusuf was also part of the 2011 World Cup winning team. After playing 57 ODIs and 22 T20Is, Pathan retired in 2022. An animal lover — he keeps birds, rabbits and horses at this farm house — he seemed to be at peace. But four months ago, he got an unexpected call from the TMC. Baharampur’s 52-per cent Muslim voters and the role that Pathan played in Kolkata Knight Riders’ two IPL titles were said to be the reasons for the approach. Thebrothersthenheldalongdiscussion among themselves even asthefamily“wasreluctant”.But then,trustinghisinstincts,Pathan decided to take the plunge. “One day, suddenly, I don’t know why, I said ‘Let’s do it, we didn’t go asking for this. This opportunity has come to us, so let us take it’. Through this, we can help people and in case we have to goto Bengal, what is the problem,” Pathan recalled. He isn’t the only former cricketer to have won on a TMC ticketfromBengalthistime.Kirti Azad, the 1983 World Cup winner,toocausedamajorupset.He won the Bardhaman–Durgapur seat by 1.38 lakh votes, pushing former West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh to second spot. NowAzad,afour-timeMPafter his earlier wins from Darbhanga in Bihar, has some CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad