SAMBALPUR l monday l march 18, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION No surprises in Russian polls as Putin is all set to retain power Three days of voting came to an end on Sunday. Three candidates, who are Kremlin-friendly, were Putin’s rivals in the Presidential elections Opposition asks voters to come late Notably, rival candidates have not criticised Putin’s 24-year rule or his invasion of Ukraine two years ago. His fiercest opponent Alexei Navalny died in Arctic prison last month. Before his death, Navalny had endorsed an opposition call asking those who are unhappy with Putin to come to polling station at noon on Sunday. It is not clear if this call was a success ■ 2036 Protesters throw ink in ballot boxes ■ Multiple cases of vandalism were reported at polling stations. A woman threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance and many across the country were detained for throwing ink into ballot boxes Western leaders have called the Russian election a travesty of democracy. And, there are no international observers for polls | P9 russian constitution allows putin to stay in office for 12 more years CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Latest electoral bond data show parties love to hide than disclose Only DMK, AIADMK, JD(S), and National Conference have revealed names of their donors BOND-ED PARTIES DMK JDS K509 crore from Future Gaming and Hotel Services K89.75 crore (J50 crore from Megha Engineering and rest from Aditya Birla group, Infosys, JSW and Embassy Group) K105 crore from Megha Engineering K14 crore from India Cements K100 crore from Sun TV AIADMK K6.05 crore (Most of it from India Cement) National Conference K50 Lakh from Bharti Group BJP TMC Congress BRS BJD DMK YSR Congress TDP JD(S) AAP Shiv Sena RJD NCP Sikkim Krantikari Morcha Samajwadi party Akali Dal AIADMK National Conference Sikkim Democratic Party MU K E S H RANJAN @ New Delhi The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday uploaded the remaining data on the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds that political parties had shared with it and which was submitted to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. The ECI published the details after it got the sealed cover back from the apex court. Political parties had filed data on electoral bonds in sealed cover as directed by the apex court’s interim order of April 12, 2019. The fresh disclosure by the ECI shows that only a few parties — DMK, AIADMK, JD(S), and National Conference — have revealed the name of their donors. The poll panel’s latest disclosure is part of the data dump pertaining to a total of 523 recognised and non-recognised political parties made public on the Supreme Court’s orders. According to reports, the latest data pertain to the period before April 12, 2019. This is the second set of data that the poll panel has published. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the poll panel last week. “Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court with- FIR against Baghel filed in Mahadev app betting scam `6,986.5 cr `1,397 cr `1,334 cr `1,322 cr `944.5 cr `656.5 cr `442.8 cr `181.35 cr `89.75 cr `69 cr `60.4 cr `56 cr `50.51 cr `15.5 cr `14.05 cr `7.26 cr `6.05 cr `50 Lakh `50 lakh Zero bond parties BSP CPI-M BJD has encashed Rahul’s yatra comes to end in Mumbai electoral bonds worth `944.5 crore Rahul along with Priyanka, Tushar Gandhi (in green), great-grandson of Mahatma, at a padayatra in Mumbai on Sunday | pti S u dhi r s u r ya w a n shi @ Mumbai CPI All-India Forward Bloc CPI-ML Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, AIMIM IAUDF Zoram People’s Movement Asom Gana Parishad Bodoland People’s Front Kerala Congress (Mani) out opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the SC’s order of March 15, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover. The Election Commission has uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website,” EC said. The fresh disclosure by the ECI is part of the data dump pertaining to a total of 523 recognised and non-recognised political parties made public following a direction by the Supreme Court. This was followed by another dataset published by the ECI last week following the SBI shared with it. The SBI was sole bank authorised to sell and redeem now defunct electoral bonds. The data show that BJP has got the highest funds through these bonds at `6,986.50 crore, followed by the TMC at `1,397 crore, and the Congress `1,334 crore. The latest disclosure is based on the declarations given by various political parties in November last year on the bonds redeemed by them since the scheme was launched in early 2018. It includes scanned copies of the disclosures by the political parties, running into hundreds of pages. H e m a n t K u m a r R o u t @ Bhubaneswar Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the richest regional party in the country has encashed elec, toral bonds worth `944.5 crore in last six years between July 16, 2018 and July 15, 2023. As per the second set of SBI electoral bond data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday BJD en, cashed `244 crore in nine months between July 7, 2018 and April 5, 2019. During the period, the party had received 214 bonds of `1 crore denomination, 299 of `10 lakh denomination and 10 of `1 lakh denomination. The party had submitted the bond details in a sealed cover as directed by the Supreme Court in its interim order on April 12, 2019. The bond details are believed to be pertaining to the period not made public by the poll panel in the first phase. On March 14, the ECI had publicised bond details during the period from July 20, 2019 to November 24, 2023. The Naveen Patnaik-led party redeemed electoral bonds worth `213.5 crore in 2018-19, `50.5 crore in 2019-20, `67 crore in 2020-21, `291 crore in 2021-22, `152 crore in 2022-23 and `170.5 crore in 2023-24 (till September 30 last year). The regional party received a total of 905 electoral bonds of `1 crore denomination each, 394 of `10 lakh denomination each and 10 of `1 lakh denomination each during the six-year period. It encashed bonds worth `354 crore during 2020-21 and 2021-22 Covid pandemic period. As per the analysis of bond details shared in two phases, the total monetary contribution that BJD got through electoral bonds stood at `944.5 crore. BJD topped the chart of regional parties in terms of receiving electoral bonds as donations. It was followed by DMK, which has received bonds Continued on P5 worth `656.5 crore. This year, cup goes to Bangalore Delhi Capitals once again fell short in the final as Royal Challengers Bangalore were crowned the champions of the second season of the WPL in New Delhi... e j a z k a is e r @ Raipur THE Chhattisgarh police on Sunday filed a FIR against former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel in the online Mahadev App betting scam case. Though the FIR was filed on March 4, it was announced on Sunday a day after the Lok Sabha polling dates were announced. Baghel is the Congress candidate for the Rajnandgaon constituency where the election will be held on April 26. “It is a political FIR and my name has been deliberately inserted into it along with others under pressure,” Baghel said. “If the case was registered in Raipur on March 4, why then the FIR copy was released and published from Delhi on March 17 Sunday. Usually EOW or police station uploads FIR the same day on website. The maximum action against Mahadev App has been taken in Chhattisgarh (during Congress regime),” he said, adding that it is for the Centre to get the key accused extradited to India. The investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) indicated the alleged involvement of senior politicians and bureaucrats in facilitating the Mahadev App illegal betting in reciprocity for “protection money”. In the App betting scam, presumed to be over Rs 6,000 crore, the name of Baghel was conspicuously cited in the supplementary chargesheet of the ED filed early this year before the Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Raipur. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi entered the next phase of his Lok Sabha election campaign by addressing the closing rally of Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra on Sunday in Mumbai. He alleged that Narendra Modi wins elections because of EVMs. Rahul said that his people went to the election commission and asked them to show how it operates. “But the election commission refuses to do that. Why? Voters should know whether their vote is re- Shafali Verma packs a Punch in powerplay On a surface where every batter found it hard to get a start, Shafali Verma breezed through the powerplay with 42 runs off just 21 balls, which included two fours and three sixes. Over her hitting spree, she smashed 19 runs off Renuka Singh Thakur’s second over E x p r e ss N e w S e r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar/Berhampur With the Enforcement Directorate (ED) gaining notoriety over its probe into several high-profile cases and arrests of political leaders and bureaucrats in the recent years, two brothers took advantage of the fear induced by the agency’s name to extort money from government officials in Odisha. The duo Tarinisen Mohapatra (30) and his brother Brahmashankar (27) of Dhenkanal was arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of state Crime Branch on Saturday. They had allegedly attempted to extort money from nearly Sophie Molinuex’s perfect over With Delhi Capitals flying at 9.14 runs per over, Molinuex broke open the game with an over with three wickets in an over. It started with the wicket of Verma off the first ball. Verma tried to hit the Australian over the ropes only to find the fielder. Jemimah Rodrigues and Alice Capsey followed. DC never recovered and were bowled out for 113 Shreyanka Patil, who missed out on a few matches in the tournament, came back in style to take four wickets in the final to dismantle DC’s hopes. With 13 wickets in the season, she became the highest wicket-taker of the season taking over the likes of Marizanne Kapp and Jess Jonassen | P11 Prayer row: Int’l students of Guj varsity attacked D I L I P S I N G H K S H ATR I YA @ Ahmedabad students hailing from different foreign countries were allegedly assaulted by a mob in the Gujarat University hostel in Ahmedabad for offering namaz in the facility’s building, police said on Sunday. A student from Sri Lanka and another from Tajikistan had to be hospitalised. Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik said an FIR was registered against 20-25 people and they will be arrested soon. According to police sources, the incident was reported at around 10.50 pm on March 16 when two dozen people barged into the hostel and objected to students offering namaz in the facility where they stayed. The students pointed out that there is no mosque on the Ahmedabad-based campus. So, they had assembled inside the hostel to perform taraweeh, a nightly prayer during Ramadan. A student from Afghanistan said that a mob came to the hostel and shouted slogans, questioning their right to pray in the hostel. “They assaulted us within our rooms, destroying laptops, phones, and vandalizing different roles in every film. If Modi is asked to go under water, he will go and do the same and even fly the plane as per instructions,” he said. BJP is misusing the central agencies to poach the Opposition leaders and elected representatives, he alleged. One of the senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra recently left the Congress and before leaving, he called Sonia Gandhi, he said. The leader was crying and saying that if he does not join the BJP, then he will be put in jail, he added. Siblings tried to extort over 300 govt officials by posing as ED, held Four for Shreyanka Shreyanka Patil (second from right) was the star of the match for Royal Challangers Bangalore, taking four wickets for 12 runs on Sunday | pti ally going to the person to whom they voted for,” he said. Rahul’s yatra closing rally was attended by INDIA bloc allies. During the yatra, he travelled 4,000 km and understood people’s problems, he said. Chiding the media for not doing its job and working for the establishment, Rahul said, “Who will listen to the people’s issues. Media is diverting attention. We are fighting against the big Shakti–a mysterious power who controls. Modi is like a mask that keeps hanging like a Bollywood star who plays bikes,” he said. The student mentioned among the five injured individuals, there is one from Afghanistan, one from Sri Lanka, one from Turkmenistan, and two from African nations. Sources said the hostel’s security guards tried to intervene but the assailants continued to assault the students. There are around 300 international students enrolled at the Gujarat University . MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the state government is taking decisive action against those responsible. 350 Odisha government officials by impersonating as the Central agency’s officers and were reportedly successful in many cases. So far, the agency has traced transactions of over `16 lakh in the bank accounts of the accused. The matter came to light after a complaint was lodged by Chhatrapur sub-collector Debadatta Mohanta with the STF over demand of money by the accused from him by impersonating as an additional director of ED. The STF investigation revealed Tarinisen and Brahmashankar led a luxurious lifestyle and had borrowed huge sum of money from several people in Dhenkanal town. They had fled over a year back after the lenders started demanding their money . They had shifted to Ranchi and started working with an NGO - Upkar. As the NGO based out of the Jharkhand capital was not making profits, the accused hit upon the idea to make some quick money. The duo decided to target collectorate, tehsil, RTO officials and others. They impersonated as ED officers as the central agency is in news recently for its raids pertaining to various cases, sources Continued on P5 said. express read Kejriwal gets 2 ED summonses in separate cases New Delhi: The ED on Sunday issued two fresh summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal regarding two separate cases — the now scrapped excise policy case and another related to a case linked to the corruption in Delhi Jal Board. The AAP supremo has been asked to depose before the central agency at its office here on March 18 in the DJB case while three days later, i.e. on March 21, he has been summoned in the liquor policy case | P8
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