DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 POLL SOPS TAKE CENTRE STAGE IN CAPITAL BATTLE 04/02/2025 80 108 132 70 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Campaigningforhigh-stakesDelhi Assemblypollsends,votingtomorrow Last lap: Shah reiterates graft charge, Kejriwal says BJP will stop AAP schemes EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3 INDRA NOOYI SISTER CHANDRIKA TANDON WINS GRAMMY MUSK SAYS TRUMP HAD AGREED TO CLOSE USAID PAGE 14 MAHARASHTRA Facial recognition system: Chaos, confusion, long queues on first day at Mantralaya EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 3 THEFIRSTdayof theonboarding of a facial recognition system at Mantralaya was marred by chaos, confusion and long queues. The Maharashtra government has introduced a facial recognition system at Mantralaya, aimed at improving security, transparency and efficiency. Officials saidthe new system will ensureonlyauthorisedpeople gain access to the premises, thereby reducing unauthorised entry and enhancing overall security. While the government had launched a campaign to ensure all employees, officials and electedrepresentativeswhovisit Mantralaya registered themselves for the system, the first day was marred by confusion. “The details of 10,500 officialsandemployees,whichwere received from the Information Technology department, have been fed into the system. Accordingly, the facial recognitionsystemhas beeninstalled at all entrance gates,” an official said. However, on the first day, several government officials struggled as their faces were not recognised by the system, forcing them to stand in line. “As my face was not recognised, I had to redo the entire process,” said an official from the deputy CM’s office. In addition to officials, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah addresses a rally at Jangpura on Monday. Abhinav Saha; AAP leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal takes part in a roadshow in Kalkaji. Tashi Tobgyal DECISION 2025 DELHI TOTALSEATS:70 PARTY-WISESEATS WONIN2020 AAP BJP 62 8 Turnoutin2020:62.5% Votingon FEB5 Resultson FEB8 Source: EC RELATEDREPORT PAGE 7 BJP’s hope: 11 yrs on, AAP vehicle for change stuck — at the bottom VANDITA MISHRA NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3 IN AN arena where Congress is relegatedtothestatusof a minor third wheel, on the other side from the 11-year incumbent AAP, is a Modi-BJP that has just returned for a third term at the Centreandischafingatbeingout of power for 27 years in Delhi. The BJP labels the AAP as a purveyor of “revdis” (or “freebies”) and, at the same time, assures voters it will not discontinue the existing schemes. It even tries to outdo the AAP with its own promises of cash transfersandsubsidies—forinstance, if AAP says it will give Rs 2,100 a month to women, the BJP pledges Rs 2,500 monthly. Unlike in many other states, however, the BJP’s USP may lie less in the commitments it makes to individual labharthis - in the national capital, the AAP hasbeattheBJPtoit.Itlies,more, in a set of appeals that are also a prominent part of the BJP’s multi-layered pitch elsewhere: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invocation of larger, powerful wholes of “desh (nation)” and Indiaintheworld,andnarratives of big “development”. So far, in the capital, where aspirations grow even if living spaces become cramped, the BJP’s appeal, alongside theAAP’s pitch, has led to Delhi’s unique split ticket in the last two elections for the Centre and assembly -- Modi at the Centre decisively, Kejriwal in Delhi overwhelmingly. As The Indian Express spoke to voters from Shaheen Bagh to Shalimar Bagh, from Sangam CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NAAC bribery: JNU Retired soldier killed, wife & niece suspends prof, his injured in Kashmir militant attack tenure as Dean was cut short in 2023 BASHAARAT MASOOD SRINAGAR, FEBRUARY 3 VIDHEESHA KUNTAMALLA & ABHINAYA HARIGOVIND NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3 ARRESTED BY the CBI in a bribery case linked to the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Rajeev Sijariya, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ABVSME), is no stranger to controversy. In 2023, his two-year tenure asDeanofABVSMEwascutshort afterseveralfacultymembersaccused him of “undemocratic decision-making” and “instigating students against faculty members”, The Indian Express has learnt. “He never involved his school’s faculty in major decisions, which created discontent. Ultimately,hehadtostepdown,” said a colleague at JNU, speaking on condition of anonymity. Anotherprofessorandanofficial from the JNU administration confirmed this. Sijariya was appointed as the Dean in 2023 itself. Heeraman Tiwariwaseventuallyappointed toleadtheschool,setupin2020. An order to this effect, issued on March14,2024,stated,“TheVice Chancellor…hasappointed Prof Tiwari, Centre of Historical Studies,Schoolof SocialSciences as Dean, ABVSME.” Tiwari and JNU ViceChancellorSantishreePanditdeclined to comment. On Monday, the JNU administration suspended Sijariya, who is among 10 people arrested by the CBI in an alleged bribery case tied to the NAAC. According to the FIR, members of the NAAC inspection team demanded a bribe of ?1.8 crore from Koneru Lakshmaiah EducationFoundationinAndhra Pradesh for a favourable inspection report. After negotiations, the team allegedly agreed to accept ?10 lakh for the committee chairman,?3lakhforeachmember, and perks such as a laptop and travel expenses for one member’s wife. It is alleged that Sijariya brokered the deal and demanded?1.3croreforhimself, although he settled for ?28 lakh. Sijariya was also the former president of the ABVP’s unit in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut. SourcesatJNUtoldTheIndian Express on Monday Sijariya was CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AN EX-SERVICEMAN was killed, and his wife and niece were injured, when gunmen opened fire at them in south Kashmir’s Kulgam on Monday. Thisisthefirstmilitantattack in the Valley this year. According to police sources, the unidentified gunmen shot at the ex-serviceman, identified as retired Lance Naik Manzoor AhmadWagay(45),andhisfamily outside their residence at Behibagh village in Kulgam. The bullets hit Wagay, his wife and her niece. While Wagay was hit intheabdomen,thetwowomen suffered wounds in the legs. All three were immediately EXPRESS NETWORK TIGER GIVES UTTAR PRADESH VILLAGES ANXIOUS DAYS MANIPUR VIOLENCE: SC SEEKS REPORT ON AUDIO TAPES P 9 & 12 Security personnel keep vigil in Kulgam after the militant attack on the ex-serviceman. PTI taken to hospital where Wagay succumbed to his injuries. The othertwoareinstablecondition. “He had retired in 2021 and had been rearing sheep. He was CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SHAJU PHILIP & APURVA VISHWANATH THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3 MINUTES PAST midnight, on August 15, 1947, the echoes of Mahatma Gandhi ki jai and Bharat Mata ki jai reverberated through the Cannanore (now Kannur) jail where Communist leader AK Gopalan, then 43, was in solitary confinement. He had secretly kept a national flag with himfortheoccasion.Atdawn,he hoisted the Tricolour where other prisoners gathered to hear him speak. Barely four or five minutes into his speech, the jail authorities stopped him. Adaylater,accusedof stirring up the people “against His Majesty the Emperor”, Gopalan (or AKG, as is popularly known) was produced before a magis- trate in Calicut (now Kozhikode) and charged with sedition. He was released on October 12, 1947, but just over a month later, he wasdetained again underthe colonial laws that were still in place in the newly independent nation. After India became a republic, the Preventive Detention Act, 1950 was passed to ‘regularise’ detentions of many including AKG. “I was a political prisoner 75 YEARS ON RESHAPING THE REPUBLIC CASE BY LANDMARK CASE AN EXPRESS SERIES from 1930 to 1945 in the eyes of a foreign government. Under today’s popular government, I am Rahul invokes China to attack Govt on jobs, border security Says Delhi sought PM invite to US; Jaishankar calls it falsehood E New foot forward? RAHUL GANDHI’S conciliatory noises seemed a departure from the acrimony of previous Parliament Sessions. The Congress leader also repeatedly projected INDIA bloc as an entity, amidst rising tensions within the alliance. MANOJ C G & ASAD REHMAN NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3 A FORTNIGHT after he announced the launch of a White T-shirts campaign — billed as a platform for youth, to unite workers across sectors — Rahul Gandhi focused on the youth and unemployment in his addressinParliamentMonday,this time in the context of the rise of China as a manufacturing giant. Incidentally, in his speech – which he described as the addressaPresidentunderanINDIA blocgovernmentwouldmaketo Parliament — Gandhi offered several backhanded compliments to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While these were part of the argument Gandhi built against the Modi government’s job creation record, the Congress leader’s approach was a departure from previous Parliament Sessions marked with bitter acrimony. Even several Congress allies have been uncomfortable with Gandhi’s unrelenting combat- ● IN PARLIAMENT P8 iveness in the House. Incidentally, the most divisive of those issues, Gautam Adani, hardly figured in Gandhi’s speech Monday. Gandhi’s 45-minute address essentiallycouldbesplitintotwo parts.If thefirstwashisnuanced attack on the government over unemployment, the second was on more expected lines – caste census, “threats” to Constitution and Constitutional institutions, and in the same thread, “irregularities” in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. The new point Gandhi made was the indication that the Opposition does not have faith CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Trump pauses tariffs on Mexico for a month after ‘very friendly conversation’, border deal JOSH BOAK & FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 3 US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum put their planned tariffs on hold for a month on Monday to give time for further negotiations, and Mexico said it planned to deploy 10,000 members of its National Guard to address drug trafficking. Trump’s tariffs against Canada and China were still slated to go into effect Tuesday, but uncertainty remained about the durability of any deals and whether the tariffs were a harbinger of a broader trade war, as Trump has promised more im- When freedom came on August 15, 1947, he was in prison; his case a benchmark for personal liberty In this series, The Indian Express tracks down the women and men who reshaped the Republic Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha Monday. PTI E X P L A I NE D THE WORLD THE HIGH-PITCHED campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections — which saw the AAP, BJP and Congress raising the stakes with various pollsopsandschemes— drew to a close on Monday. The 70 Assembly constituencies in the Capital will vote on Wednesday, and the results will be declared on February 8. The AAP is seeking a third consecutive term while the BJP ishopingforacomebackafter27 years.TheCongress,whichdominatedDelhi’spoliticallandscape for a decade-and-a-half before the AAP burst on to the scene, is looking to regain its foothold. In the run-up to the polls, all three parties announced a slew of poll sops. Amidcriticismoverbasingits governance model on freebies, the AAP doubled down and announced an increase from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,100 per month in its promised Mukhyamantri MahilaSammanRaashi scheme, free treatment for all above the age of 60 years in empanelled private hospitals, and a monthly branded as a criminal,” he wrote inhisautobiographyIn the Cause of the People. In 1950, he moved the Supreme Court against his detention, perhapshoping that the freedoms guaranteed by the new Constitution that came into force in 1950 would ensure his release from jail. After all, Article 21 stated that “no person shall bedeprivedof hislifeorpersonal liberty except according to procedure established by law”. AKG argued that the preventive detention law violated his fundamentalrightsunder,among others,Article21andArticle22of the Constitution (protection against arrest and detention). However, Article 22, while providing for “protection against arrestanddetention”,includingthe right to be informed of charges, therighttoalawyerandtheright to be produced before a court within 24 hours, carves out a strategicexception—thatprotectionissuspendedwhenanarrest is under a law that specifically providesforpreventivedetention. Thus, AK Gopalan v State of Madras would thus go on to becomethefirstcasetoquestionthe US President Donald Trump, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum port taxes to come. The US and Mexican leaders announcedthe pauseafter what Trump described on social media as a “very friendly conversation”, and he said he looked forward to the upcoming talks. Trump said the talks would be headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 1950 AKGOPALAN VSTATEOFMADRAS WHO’S HE: Born in 1904 in Kannur, A K Gopalan was a teacher before he joined the Independence struggle. He was held for the first time in 1930 for taking part in the Constitution’s contrariety. On May 19, 1950 , a six-judge bench held that the preventive detentionlawwasvalidandonly allowed minor procedural safeguards that the length of detention had to be informed at the civil disobedience movement. He joined Congress, became an AICC member before joining the Communist Party. His political leanings meant frequent detentions. time of arrest although it could be extended. While AKG lost his case, the prescient questions it raised continue to shape our rights and freedoms. “Preventive detention is CONTINUED ON PAGE 2