TUESDAY 04 JUNE 2024 www.thestatesman.com Pages 12 |` 5.00|LC X.com/thestatesmanltd. Fb/thestatesman1875 INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1818 KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR NITISH KUMAR MEETS PM AHEAD OF LS POLL RESULTS JILL BIDEN ARRIVES FOR JURY SELECTION IN FEDERAL GUN CASE P5 P9 SENSEX 76,468.78 NIFTY 23,263.90 WEATHER Partly cloudy sky. Rain / thundershower likely to occur. Maximum and Minimum Temperature most likely be around 34°C and 28°C respectively. RAINFALL: 0.0 mm RELATIVE HUMIDITY Max. 92% Min. 66% Max: 34.4°C (-1.4) SUN RISES 04:52 hrs MOON RISES 02:01 hrs Min: 27.9°C (+0.1) SUN SETS 18:18 hrs MOON SETS 15:08 hrs TEMPERATURE New Moon on 06 June Youngsters take bath in a canal to cool off on a hot summer day, in Amritsar on Monday.  ANI Taj Express catches fire in Delhi, no injuries reported: A few coaches of the Taj Express train caught fire in Delhi's Sarita Vihar area on Monday, a fire department official said, adding that no one was injured in the incident. According to the fire department, a call regarding the blaze was received at 4:25 p.m. "Six fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the fire in coach number D-3, D-4, and a small portion of D-2," said Delhi Fire Service (DFS) chief Atul Garg. ` vs $ 83.14 GOLD 74,560.00 DEEPAK RAZDAN NEW DELHI, 3 JUNE fter campaign and polling during the heat waves of past six weeks, and the surprise and dismay over Exit Polls’ predictions, the nation’s verdict on the 18th Lok Sabha election will be available early on Tuesday, setting in process the formation of the new Government at the Centre. Counting centres across the nation on Monday saw hectic activity to conduct the counting of votes in a smooth and flawless manner. There were extensive drills how the operation would go onTuesday, beginning 8 am. Several layers of security and provision of air coolers will ensure no doubt the counting personnel work in a secure and comfortable manner. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar assured the nation the entire counting mechanism is “robust” and the whole process is codified in a certain manner that no error can be found in the whole procedure. He said "every part is decided. The whole process is codified. Micro observers are in place. There cannot be any mistake in this process. Lakhs of people including counting officials, counting NEW DELHI, 3 JUNE agents, micro-observers, returning officers, assistant returning officers, observers will be present during the world's largest counting exercise.” The BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the prime stakeholder in the current election and Exit Polls have shown he could achieve a hat trick to become the nation’s Prime Minister for a third consecutive term. Mr Modi has been a Member of Parliament (MP) from Uttar Pradesh'sVaranasi, from where he contested his maiden Lok Sabha election in 2014, and now contested the seat for the third time. His main challenger is Mr Ajay Rai, the Congress party's state unit chief, who came third in both 2014 and 2019 polls. The Prime Minister conducted one of the most exten- The index closed at 23,263.90, up 733 points, or 3.25%. Among the sectors, all ended with gains. Nifty PSU Bank index surged 8.40%, followed by Nifty Oil & Gas by 6.81% and Nifty Realty by 5.95%. Nifty Bank surged 4.07% while the Financial Services and Private Bank indexes jumped 4.04% and 3.34%, respectively. The mid-cap and smallcap indices also reached fresh record highs during the session. BSE Midcap index hit its fresh all-time high of 44560.97 during the session and closed 3.54% higher at 44,367.67. The BSE Smallcap index hit its fresh record high of 48,973.96 during the session and finally settled with a gain of 2.05% at 48,232.30. Further, the volatility index IndiaVIX crashed 15% to come back to the level of 20.94. On the Nifty 50, the gainers were Adani Ports (10.62%), SBI (9.48%), NTPC (9.33%), Power Grid (9.03%) and ONGC (7.43%). However, the losers were Eicher Motors (1.34%), LTIMindtree (1.12%), HCL Tech (0.57%), Sun Pharma (0.32%), Asian Paints (0.22%), Britannia (0.19%) and Dr Reddy's Labs (0.03%). Ahead of the election results, the PSU indices too jumped to fresh highs. The Nifty PSE index climbed over 5% to a record high, with HPCL, Power Grid, REC, and PFC each rallying over 6% in early morning trade. Ex-Brahmos Aerospace engineer awarded life term for spying for Pakistan’s ISI An ex-engineer of Brahmos Aerospace, Nagpur, who was arrested in a sensational case of spying for Pakistan’s ISI, has been awarded a 14-year jail term by a sessions court here on Monday. Nishant Agarwal -- an aerospace engineer -- was arrested in 2018 for allegedly leaking sensitive information about India’s Brahmos missiles to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan in a suspected honey-trap operation. Besides the 14-year sentence under the Official Secrets Act, Additional Sessions Judge M.V. Deshpande also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000 on Agarwal, special public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani told the media. At the time of his arrest six years ago, Agarwal was work- BRENT CRUDE (IN $) 79.96 ‘Indian elections are indeed miracle, created world record of 642 million voters’ CEC Rajiv Kumar said that no error can be found in the whole counting procedure STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NAGPUR, 3 JUNE P12 SILVER 92,800 LS polls: India’s moment of truth sive election campaigns ever seen in general elections, his catchpoint was the nation was not just electing members of Parliament; this was a moment to elect the nation’s leadership, a Prime Minister who would steer a vast nation waking up to its forgotten strength, and ensure its rightful place in an ever competitive world. Mr Modi was down to earth in his speeches and communicated with the electorate in as much diversity as different regions of the country presented. As Prime Minister, he asked people whether they had benefited from the welfare schemes. As a political leader, he told the voters the immense power their votes carried. His advice was they must break all previous records of voting and ensure Stock market surges over 3 pc ahead of declaration of LS election results AGENCIES ‘WOULD LOVE TO COACH THE INDIAN TEAM’ P10 A THUMBNAILS After the Lok Sabha exit polls predicted a landslide victory for the BJP and a day before the counting and announcement of the results, the stock market surged by over 3% on Monday. Both the indices hit their fresh record highs, jumping almost 4%, and ended at their fresh closing highs with gains of over 3% each. Investors' wealth jumped Rs 12.48 trillion in morning trade on Monday. Sensex opened at 76,583.29, 2,622 points higher against its previous close, and surged 2,778, or 3.8%, to hit its fresh record high of 76,738.89. It finally closed with a hefty gain of 2,507 points, or 3.39%, at 76,468.78. On the other hand, Nifty 50 opened 807 points higher at 23,337.90, and rose 808 points, or 3.6%, to hit its fresh record high of 23,338.70 in early deals. ‘COUNTRY IS GOING TO BE FREE FROM NEGATIVE FORCES’ ing as a senior systems engineer with the Brahmos Aerospace, a joint venture of the DRDO and the Military Industrial Consortium of Russia. Agarwal was part of the teams working to develop India’s supersonic cruise missile that could be launched from land, sea, air, and underwater, giving an edge to the country’s defence muscles. The spy scandal hit the headlines then as Agarwal, who was working with the company for over four years, reportedly fell victim to a honey-trap operation purportedly managed by the ISI. After it was detected, a team of Military Intelligence along with the ATS of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh swooped to arrest him. In April 2023, he was granted bail by the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench). As per the subsequent investigations, he was in touch with the two suspected operatives through two Facebook accounts in the name of Pooja Rajan and Neha Sharma. The accounts were based out of Islamabad and were said to be run by ISI operatives. The investigators later said that Agarwal became an easy target on social media owing to his casual approach despite being engaged in a secret and sensitive defence-related project. The investigators said that Agarwal’s laptop had restricted and secret files, besides a software through which such classified information could be transferred to countries or organisations abroad.Agarwal is an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, and also the winner of the Young Scientists Award presented by the DRDO. the momentum of development experienced by them continues. The Congress-led INDIA, a combination of several major regional parties, challenged the BJPled NDA government, and tried hard to counter the BJP campaign, stressing on anti-incumbency factors suffered by the Government. The political alliance could not overcome its obvious contradictions, in spite of the length of the sevenphase polling, though it united quickly to contest the accuracy of the Exit Polls as they came. Till the end of the campaign, it could not answer convincingly who could be its leader against Mr Modi. The festival of democracy that the 18th Lok Sabha was called, however, had massive participation of voters both in political rallies and the voting day. This was despite the oppressive May heat that seemed to get worse every few days. Days before the counting of votes, the Exit Polls generated much interest about southern States, and how they must have voted. The parties in power in States from Kerala to Tamil Nadu, along with Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, fought the BJP campaigns and declined to give up. It may take just a few hours of counting onTuesday to bring out the result of the campaigns there. ‘Sinister attempt’ made by foreign media to impact Indian elections: Report The Nifty PSU Bank index raced ahead of both the private bank and Bank Nifty indices, rising 4.5% to a fresh record in early morning trade. Bank of Baroda, SBI, and Indian Bank were the top gainers in the public bank index. The railway stocks also surged by over 13%. Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) saw an increase of 11%, while the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) surged by 12.5%. Other railway stocks that saw gains included IRCON International (6.26%), RITES (3.52%), Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) by 3%, andTexmaco Rail & Engineering by 5.28%. Kotak Institutional Equities has also released its latest note saying that it finds little value in the Indian market, seeing most sectors and stocks as overvalued relative to fair value. This overvaluation increases inversely with market capitalisation, quality, and risk. AGENCIES NEW DELHI, 3 JUNE A startling report on "massive foreign interference" in India's just-concluded Lok Sabha elections has revealed that "millions of dollars" were spent to impact the voter mindset and set a dangerous narrative around it through an "orchestrated and well-funded plan". The report, titled 'Invisible hands - foreign interference in Indian elections 2024' and released by Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) organisation DisInfo Lab, stated that as millions of Indians were deciding their future, a section of the global media and academia was planning a sinister plot to influence their decisions with "tireless attack" on everything linked to elections. "In the past few months, democratic processes and institutions in India including political establishments have come under hostile attacks from the foreign press, academia, and activists. A deliberate effort has been made to push an agenda that undermines the largest democratic process in the world," the report mentioned. "The extent of this Influence campaign was not restricted to the Western media itself; many Indian conduits were at the forefront and acted like the anvil that was ready to be moulded to any shape," it added saying that "insane number of pages" in the form of articles/op-Eds/ research papers were dedicated to the Indian elections that peaked in the last six months. "Some of these media outlets had tacit funding, and some were explicit, while few were funded by organisations with dark backgrounds of publishing slant narratives -- e.g. -- from stories based on 'random WhatsApp groups' to creating heroes out of Pak-sponsored stooges," the DisInfo report mentioned. SANTU DAS NEW DELHI, 3 JUNE Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said here on Monday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had made foolproof arrangements to ensure peaceful and fair counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday. He said a record number of 642 million voters exercised their franchise in the Lok Sabha polls that concluded on Saturday, said on Monday. Addressing a press conference, along with Election Commissioners (ECs), Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, the CEC said, “We have created a world record with 642 million proud Indian voters casting their vote. This is a historic moment for all of us, for the nation as a whole. This is 1.5 times the number of voters in the G7 countries. It is 2.5 times that of the voters of 27 countries in the EU.” He said that has been the incredible power of voters of India. As for the participation of women in the elections, the CEC said, “There are 312 million voters. This is also the highest ever in the world. We salute our voters, especially women voters, who have come out to vote in this election.” He informed that Jammu and Kashmir recorded the highest voter turnout in the last four decades in these general elections. The overall voter turnout was recorded at 58.58 per cent. “We would very soon start the process of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir,” Kumar added. He said this was one of the general elections where no major incident of violence was reported. Elaborating on the arrangements made for the counting of votes, Kumar said the entire counting process is absolutely robust. The process of counting is codified. “There cannot be any systemic mistake in this process. It works like a precision clock. There may be human problems, we will deal with that,” he added. The CEC further said, “As per Rule 54A, postal ballot counting will start first. So, in all the (counting) centres, it will start first, there is no doubt about it. After only half an hour the EVM counting will start. As soon as EVM counting gets over, the counting of five (random) VVPAT will start.” He said the same process was followed in 2019 (general elections) and it happened in all the Assembly elections in 2022 and added that it happened on Sunday also during the counting of votes in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim Assembly elections. “The number of postal ballots is less in the majority of booths. So automatically it will finish earlier,” the CEC added. Notably, a delegation of the INDIA bloc leaders met the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday and demanded that the postal ballots should be counted before announcing the results of EVMs. On the reelections, the CEC said, “This time, we have not had many re-polls. This is an incredible story again of the meticulous work of the personnel and all those who are involved in the election against 540 in 2019 there were only 39 repolls in 2024. Of these 39 also, 25 are only in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. Just 14 repolls in the rest of the country. 27 states have had no repolls.” On the lessons learned during the polls, he said elections should be completed before summer, and that be more prepared to tackle fake narratives. EC rejects Jairam's request: The Election Commission on Monday rejected the request of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh to give him one weektime to file a detailed reply on his allegation against Home Minister Amit Shah calling 150 district magistrates ahead of counting of votes for Lok Sabha election. The Congress leader sought the time from the EC in response to a notice issued by it on Sunday. PM, INDIA bloc leaders pay homage to Karunanidhi on his 100th birth anniversary STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 3 JUNE Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday paid homage to DMK patriarch and former chief minister M Karunanidhi on his 100th birth anniversary remembering him for the work he did for the development of Tamil Nadu and the Tamils. INDIA bloc leaders also paid rich tributes to 'Kalaignar' at Anna-Kalaignar Arivalayam in New Delhi. Taking to X, the prime minister said, ''I pay tributes to Kalaignar Karunanidhi Ji on his 100th birth anniversary. In his long years in public life, he worked towards the development of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil people.'' He said Karunanidhi was widely respected for his scholarly nature fondly recalling his several interactions with him, including the one when both were the chief ministers of their respective states. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin described Karunanidhi, his father, as a multi-faceted personality being a politician, writer, dramatist, and philosopher. He said the entire country looked upon him as a political visionary. Recalling the achievements of the DMK patriarch, he said his father was the driving force behind the party cadre and that they were working on the path shown by him. ''A leader who had a transformative effect on both Tamil Nadu and India's politics, his legacy includes pro- CMYK moting social justice, advancing economic equality, and defending the language and culture of the Tamil people,'' he said. UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also paid tribute to Karunanidhi in Delhi. Rahul said, “I'm happy to come here in remembrance of a great leader of Tamil Nadu, somebody who defended the culture and the language of the Tamil people and it's an honour for me to come here. Heartfelt tributes to the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, 'Kalaignar' M. Karunanidhi, on his birth anniversary.'' DMK leaders, T R Baalu and Tiruchi Siva, and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah paid tributes to the late leader during a ceremony in Delhi. CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader D Raja, and Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav were also present on the occasion. Karunanidhi headed the DMK for five decades and served as MLA, MLC, and the leader of the Opposition. He wrote stories, screenplay, and lyrics for numerous films. He also produced many films. Karunanidhi also had a stint in journalism. He edited a newspaper and was a prolific writer. Sonia Gandhi expressed the hope that the results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 would be completely opposite to what the exit polls have predicted. Speaking to reporters after paying tribute to Karunanidhi, she said, "Just wait and watch. We are very hopeful that our results are completely the opposite of what the exit polls are showing." All the exit polls have predicted a thumping majority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA. If the exit polls hold true, the BJP-led alliance is poised to win more than 360 seats.