Vol. 66 No. 309 | THURSDAY | AUGUST 31, 2023 | 20 Pages | `5 & for Pune `6 only Quality at Value www.freepressjournal.in EDITIONS: MUMBAI*, Pune, Nashik, Konkan, Indore, Bhopal, E-paper BHAJAN KUMAR INTRODUCED BY YRF Vicky Kaushal performs on the song Kanhaiya Twitter Pe Aaja at an event in Mumbai EDIT FURTHER SUB-DIVISION ON CASTE LINES? HP, DELL, ACER & OTHERS APPLY FOR IT HARDWARE PLI 2.0 Expected incremental production under the scheme pegged at Rs 3.35L cr: Vaishnaw 0 0 31 c. 27 c. Sunrise : 06:23 am Sunset : 06:56 pm ALL STARS IN OPPOSITION CONSTELLATION WE HAVE OPTIONS, BJP HAS ONLY ONE: DIDI TO ALL: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said the opposition's INDIA grouping has several options available for the post of prime ministerial candidate, while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has only one. He was addressing a press conference at Grand Hyatt Hotel, the venue of the two-day meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance that is scheduled to begin on Thursday. "The question about choice of the prime ministerial nominee should be addressed to the BJP which , has only one option that we have seen for the last nine years. As against this, INDIA alliance has several options,’’ Thackeray said in response to a question. He also took a swipe at the Centre over its decision to slash the LPG cylinder price by Rs 200 as a `Raksha Bandhan gift'. "Was there no Raksha Bandhan during the last nine years,” he asked. Banerjee dropped in at the Bachchan household for a cup of tea on Wednesday afternoon. "I am very pleased… I met the Bharatratna … I tied him a ‘rakhi’... I adore this family.’’ Jaya, sporting a white churidar-kurta with a printed pink dupatta, came down and greeted Banerjee with a warm bear-hug as she alighted from her vehicle. Earlier in the day, Mamata had tied Uddhav a ‘rakhi’, too. KEJRIWAL NOT IN RACE: AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar gave an indication of the prickly issue of leadership that needs to be resolved, when on Wednesday she proposed the name of Arvind Kejriwal as the prime ministerial candidate for the opposition INDIA bloc. While speaking to news agency  ANI, Kakkar said, “If you ask me, I would want Arvind Kejriwal to be the Opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate." As TV channels lapped up the statement, AAP MP Raghav Chadha clarified matters and told  ANI, “AAP has not joined the INDIA alliance for the PM’s post. Arvind Kejriwal is not in the race to become the Prime Minister of India. We have joined the INDIA alliance to prepare a blueprint for a better India and to free India from the evils and shackles of unemployment, price rise, inflation, etc." Hours later, Delhi Cabinet Minister Atishi also commented on Kakar’s statement and said Kejriwal does not have such aspirations. LAUNCH VEHICLE FOR RAHUL: The INDIA formulation had decided in principle that posters should be put up to project unity and the common denominators. The first to deviate from the norm was the Congress which showed, in an Instagram post, Rahul Gandhi upfront with other Opposition leaders flanking him, almost suggesting that he was spearheading the I.N.D.I.A. alliance. The post was reportedly deleted after one of the constituents protested. In the old poster, Kejriwal was conspicuous by his absence, but after amends were made the AAP leader finds a place of pride in the constellation of Opposition stars. Commenting on the flip-flop, BJP said the alliance has no mission and it has become a launch vehicle for Rahul Gandhi. TERMINATOR ALWAYS WINS: Ahead of INDIA bloc’s meeting, the BJP released on social media a poster depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the fictional cyborg character from Arnold Schwarzenegger-starrer 'Terminator,' with a replay of his famous dialogue. "2024! I'll be back!" the poster reads, in a dig at the opposition's attempt to put up a united fight to take on the BJP in the general elections next year. The caption accompanying the poster, which was shared on the BJP's official social media accounts, read: "Opposition thinks PM Modi can be defeated. Dream on! The Terminator always wins." The BJP-led Maharashtra government has also announced a two-day review meeting of all 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. ■ DIFFERENT IDEOLOGIES, ONE GOAL ■ FOCUS ON SEAT-SHARING – CITY THE FP BULLETIN ROVER SENDS LANDER’S PIX Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan on Wednesday shared an image of the lander Vikram, the first that it has clicked using its navigation camera. The picture is the first one that the rover has clicked since landing on the moon. Until now, all the photos and videos had been captured by Vikram. Sharing the photograph on Twitter, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) called it the "image of the mission". LAWYER SHOT IN CHAMBER: A lawyer was shot dead at his office in Ghaziabad in UP on Wednesday. The lawyer, Monu Chaudhary, was in his chambers inside the district court complex when two men barged in and opened fire. Chaudhary's blood-covered body was found slumped in the chair. The killing comes on the heels of legal practitioners across western UP going on a 24-hour strike to protest a clash between lawyers and police in the state's Hapur region.  CHEENI KUM, MORE BITTERNESS Not all is well among Fadnavis and Ajit over loans to sugar units S BALAKRISHNAN / MUMBAI   bitter fight has broken out beA tween deputy chief ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, over the allocation of loans to sugar factories. Ajit Pawar, who controls the crucial finance portfolio,  had recently made a decisive move concerning the disbursement of loans to these factories.   In response to strong objections by BJP leaders with influence over these sugar factories, Fadnavis intervened on Wednesday and stayed Pawar’s decision. , Consequently the matter will now , be referred to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde for the ultimate verdict. Since Shinde too is upset with Pawar’s style of functioning, DRUG MAFIA CAT OUT OF THE BAG Rs 1,000cr-worth benami assets in names of pets to evade scrutiny ASHISH SINGH / MUMBAI Final phase of solar mission PANEL WANTS ADHIR SUSPENSION REVOKED: The Privileges Committee of Parliament has adopted a resolution revoking Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's suspension from Lok Sabha and made a recommendation to Speaker Om Birla. Chowdhury, Congress's leader in Lok Sabha, was suspended during the Monsoon Session for his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the no-confidence motion debate. The Privileges Committee, sources said, was unanimous in adopting the resolution. Incidentally, the committee is led by BJP MP Sunil Kumar Singh and has many BJP members who also supported the resolution. Chowdhury had appeared before the panel and told the members that he had no intention to offend anyone. indications are that he will endorse Fadnavis’s decision. This will be a double whammy for Pawar, who is already smarting from the decision by Fadnavis on Wednesday . Ever since Pawar joined the The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has seized benami properties worth Rs 1,000cr, purchased  by the drug mafia. The NCB’s Mumbai zonal director, Amit Ghawate, told the FPJ that an operation had been launched by the bureau’s Financial Action Task Force as per a directive of the Union Home Ministry The . bureau has received information about properties in Dongri, Masjid, Colaba and other areas, which have been acquired by the mafia in benami transactions, with funds generated from the drug trade. The mafia is also believed to have invested in warehouses and other properties elsewhere in Maha- rashtra. Apparently proper, ties have been purchased even in the names of pet dogs and cats. Front organisations in the form of companies for ‘export-import’ business, scrap and real estate had also been set up towards this purpose.  The NCB has discovered that some of these properties were registered in the names of pet dogs and cats, to evade scrutiny and strangely the , tactic proved to be an effective shield, warding off detection by the income-tax database of law enforcement agencies. So far, this ploy worked but eventually the cat , was out of the bag and the NCB has now trained its sights on dismantling this kit and caboodle.  CONTD. ON NATION coalition ministry there have been , rumblings within the state ministry regarding his brusque style of functioning. Making matters worse, Pawar had openly declared that he would like to be the chief minister. This statement had Waiter molests minor in Bandra eatery, arrested VISHAL SINGH / MUMBAI Bandra Police has arrested a hotel waiter for molesting a minor girl at the restaurant where she was having dinner with her family The 13. year-old girl had gone to Kobe Sizzlers Hotel in Bandra (West) on Monday ac, cording to police officials. While the family was having dinner, Shahbad Khan (19), a waiter at the hotel on Hill Road, winked at the girl and wrote his mobile number on a paper and threw it towards her, the police said. After throwing the paper, Khan approached the girl, brushed his hand against her thigh and then went close to the girl, moved his hand on her thigh before going away The girl told her . family members about Khan's actions, after which a complaint was lodged with the Bandra police station. CONTD. ON NATION Now, e-challan SMS scam, akin to electricity bill fraud KAMAL MISHRA / MUMBAI In the wake of the relentless rise in cyber scams across India, authorities have issued a stern warning to citizens, especially vehicle owners, regarding a new and alarming threat – the fake e-challan scam. Cybercriminals are exploiting the growing reliance on e-challan payments by concocting deceptive messages that closely resemble legiti- mate traffic violation notices. These messages contain links that, when clicked, lead unsuspecting victims to fake websites designed to steal personal and financial information. The scam operates by sending text messages impersonating traffic police, informing recipients of a supposed traffic violation that requires the immediate payment of a fine. Included in these messages is a link that recipients are directed to click in order to settle the fine; however, the seemingly harmless act of clicking the link leads individuals to sophisticated fake websites designed to mimic official government platforms.  On these fake websites, victims are prompted to enter personal and financial information, ostensibly to pay the alleged fine. CONTD. ON NATION LAST WORD Was Art 370 decision logical step, asks CJI At KEM, patients often share beds FPJ NEWS SERVICE / NEW DELHI SWAPNIL MISHRA / MUMBAI “Substantial integration” of Jammu and Kashmir had taken place over 69 years with Constitutional orders incrementally applying the provisions of the Indian Constitution, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud pointed out on Thursday and asked if the August 2019 action by the Centre was “a logical step” to achieve integration. “The wide chasm between absolute autonomy as it existed on 26 January 1950 and complete integration as brought on 5 August 2019” had been bridged to a large extent, the CJI said while concluding the twelfth day of CONTD. ON NATION the hearing of the Article 370 case. The intensive care unit (ICU) of the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital is woefully short of beds, patients at the hospital said. Besides, more than 40 patients have to share one washroom, it is claimed. The patients also said that they face a shortage of drugs and X-ray sheets and are put on a long waiting list for MRI tests. This was also highlighted by Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday The sad state of affairs persists despite the BMC . having a health budget of more than Rs 6000 crores. CONTD. ON NATION caused considerable disquiet in the camps of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Fadnavis. Topping that with his pro-Sharad Pawar purrs has further fuelled misgivings about him in the minds of Shinde and Fadnavis. His decision to tighten the conditions for the allocation of loans to sugar factories by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) Maharashtra’s six cooperative sugar mills recently  secured a loan of Rs 549.54 crore from the latter. The NCP controls most of the sugar factories in the state and the BJP is making a determined bid to enter this field in a big way since it , promises access to a massive vote bank of sugarcane farmers. CONTD. ON NATION 17-yr-old killed, body is hacked AISHWARYA IYER / MUMBAI A 33-year-old man has been arrested by the police on Wednesday afternoon for allegedly killing a 17year-old boy and chopping the body into pieces. Various parts of the body includ, ing the limbs and head, were stuffed in three plastic bags and kept on the platform of the kitchen at the house of the accused, Shafi, at MHADA Colony Bharat Nagar, in Vashinaka, , Chembur, police said. Shafi, an auto rickshaw driver, used a hammer to kill the boy who , was reportedly “like a son” since the child was seven years old, and then hacked his body into pieces, according to police. Man kills minor who was like a son, part of family Shafi, alias Shafiq Abdul Majid Sheikh, was usually on duty at night, which is why his wife stayed at her mother's place nearby . The father-in-law of the accused, Lalit Dhurian, started treating the deceased as a family member and Shafi's wife treated him like a brother, according to police officials. “The victim was very close to Lalit's family and his two daughters. After Shafi married Lalit’s daughter, he started treating the child like a son. However, seeing how friendly he was with his wife and wife's sister, he started to get suspicious about their relationship,” said a police official who is part of the investigation. CONTD. ON NATION