eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE The Light on India LUCKNOW,LATECITY JUNE2,2024 At Cannes, it was India’s moment in the sun. What does this win mean for the country? 14+4PAGES,`6.00 DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ■ 2019 ■ 2024 OVERALL 67.40 Phase7 Note: Until 11.45 pm. Overall figures for 2024 not released yet Source: EC All votes are in: Turnout 61.63% and counting in Phase 7, highest in West Bengal DAMINI NATH NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 AMID HEATWAVE conditions across large parts of North India, polling for the Lok Sabha elections came to a close Saturday, withanestimated61.63percent voter turnout in the seventh and final phase. Counting of votes for the elections to the Lok Sabha, Assembly in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha will start at 8 am on June 4. Counting of votes for AssemblyelectionsinArunachal Pradesh and Sikkim will start at 6 am Sunday. According to an Election Commission statement, the overall turnout in the 57 Lok Sabha constituencies across seven states and one Union Territorywherepollingwasheld Saturday was 61.63 per cent at 11.45 pm. The final turnout could increase after scrutiny of the records on Sunday and taking into account any repoll. The EC said the updated turnout would be released “in due course”. In 2019, the same 57 seats had a turnout of 64.5 per cent. The turnout in West Bengal’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NETWORK COUNTINGBEGINS8 AM,JUNE4;RESULTS for Arunachal, Sikkim Assembly today FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT OPPTO APPROACH POLL PANEL before counting; meet again June 5 Exit polls forecast resounding return of BJP-led NDA with gains across South, Bengal and Odisha KHARGE FORECASTS 295 FOR INDIA DECISION 2024 Opp leaders put up brave face: People’s exit poll favours us, wait until June 4 EXIT POLL CONSENSUS: 350+ FOR NDA AGENCIES NDA ABPNews-CVoter IndiaToday-AxisMyIndia News24-Today’sChanakya TimesNow-ETG IndiaTV-CNX IndiaNews-D-Dynamics RepublicTV-P-Marq JanKiBaat DainikBhaskar NDTVpollofpolls 2019 Results INDIA OTHERS 353-383 361-401 400 358 371-401 371 359 362-392 281-350 365 152-182 131-166 107 152 109-139 125 154 141-161 145-201 146 4-12 8-20 36 33 28-38 47 30 10-20 33-49 32 NDA: 336 INDIA: 120 Others: 86 Note: 2019 seat tallies based on current composition of NDA and INDIA. Shiv Sena and NCP excluded as they were undivided at the time EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 ALLMAJORexitpollsprojecteda resounding victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections that concluded on Saturday.Accordingtotheirprojections,theBJPitself isexpected tobetterits2019tallyof 303seats and together with allies may even come close to realising its call of “ab ki baar, 400 paar”. The most striking takeaways fromtheexitpollswerethemassive gains made by the BJP in West Bengal and Odisha, and their emergence in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. While they are projected to consolidate their position in BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY IN THEIR bid to stall his extraditiontotheUnitedStates,lawyers for Nikhil Gupta, currently in custody in Prague for his alleged involvement in the plot to kill KhalistanseparatistGurpatwant SinghPannun,askedthecourtto determine if he was an agent working for the Indian secret service and if he could have refused the order to kill Pannun, showcourtdocumentsaccessed PM slams Opp: People have rejected INDIA bloc’s regressive politics NEW DELHI, CHENNAI, JUNE 1 Telangana, they are expected to hold on in Karnataka. ItisinMaharashtraandsome northern states that the NDA juggernaut is projected to slow down. Exit polls predict that in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 To stall extradition, Gupta told court in Prague to consider if Delhi gave orders NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 PM Narendra Modi at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari on Saturday. PTI LALMANI VERMA & ARUN JANARDHANAN ALLEGED PLOT TO KILL PANNUN RITIKA CHOPRA PUNE PORSCHE CASE: JUVENILE’S MOTHER THIRD FROM FAMILY TO BE ARRESTED SECOND PLOT TO TARGET SALMAN, 4 ARRESTED: POLICE KAMBOJ RETIRES AS REPRESENTATIVE TO UN PAGE 9 PMTHANKSVOTERS, SECURITYFORCES, praises EC for smooth conduct of polls by The Sunday Express. Ironically, a Czech court rebutted this argument and said that it was “absurd” to consider that a democracy like India would resort to such methods. GuptawasdetainedbyCzech authorities, at the request of the US government, shortly after he arrived in Prague on June 30 last year. Since then, the case pertaining to his extradition to the US, where he would be tried for allegedly plotting to kill Pannun, has been heard and decided by CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AS THE polling for the seventh phaseof LokSabhaconcludedon Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that the people had voted in record numbers to reelect the NDA government. Calling the INDIA bloc “casteist, communal and corrupt”, Modi said the opposition had failed to strike a chord with DECISION 2024 the voters, and the people had rejected their regressive politics. His remarks came after he emerged from his 45-hour-long meditation at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial. He said the people have seen the track record of the NDA government, and the manner in which his government’s work has brought a qualitative change in the lives of the poor, the marginalised and the downtrodden. Thepeople, hesaid, havealso seen how reforms in India have propelled the country to being NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 ● Targeting Congress manifesto, Insta videos: What BJP did differently ● In 26 years of LS polls, Punjab mostly chose party that ended in Opp PAGES 3, 6, 7 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 No relief on interim bail petition, Kejriwal has to go back to Tihar today NIRBHAY THAKUR ● 400 paar’? Only Cong touched that mark after Indira was killed the fifth largest global economy. “Every scheme of ours has reached the intended beneficiaries without any bias or leakage,” he said. “The INDI Alliance, aimed to protect a handful of dynasties, failed to present a futuristic vision for the nation. Through the campaign, they only enhanced their expertise on one thing – Modi bashing. Such regressive politics has been rejected by the people,” he said. Modi applauded party DENIED ANY immediate relief Saturday after a Delhi court reserved its order for June 5 on his plea for interim bail, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal will have to surrender Sunday and return to Tihar Jail. Arrested by theEnforcement Directorate on March 21 in the Delhiexcisepolicycase,Kejriwal was granted interim bail on May 10 by the Supreme Court until CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D 61.63 64.50 TURNOUT (%) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM ● The ED’s counter ED OPPOSED Kejriwal’s plea saying he was seeking extension of interim bail given by SC; that only a person in custody could seek bail; it was for a higher court, not trial court, to release a person without complying with PMLA section 45. INDIA bloc leaders meet at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in New Delhi on Saturday. Tashi Tobgyal ASAD REHMAN NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 SHORTLY BEFORE exit polls predicted the return of the BJP-led NDA, top leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc met here Saturday and put up a brave front claiming that they would cross the halfway mark. One of the leaders at the meeting said that the consensus in the room was that the BJP wouldbethesinglelargest party but fall well short of the halfway mark. After the meeting that went on for more than two hours at his residence, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the INDIA bloc would secure more than 295 seats. Rubbishing the exit polls, Congress’scommunicationhead Jairam Ramesh said: “The man whose exit is certain on June 4th has had these exit polls orchestrated. The INDIA Janbandhan will definitely get a minimum of 295 seats, which is a clear and decisive majority. The outgoing PrimeMinistercanremainsmug for three days in the meanwhile. These are all psychological games he is masterminding but the actual results will be very different.” Sources said it was also decided that most of the senior CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Crude bombs, clashes as violence mars final phase of polls in West Bengal SANTANU CHOWDHURY & RAVIK BHATTACHARYA KOLKATA, SANDESHKHALI, JUNE 1 ISOLATED INCIDENTS of violence marred the seventhand final phase of Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal on Saturday, even as 70 per cent polling was recorded till 5 pm. According to the Election Commission, until 3 pm, 2,667 complaints had been lodged by politicalparties,withallegations ranging from EVM malfunction- EVMs,VVPATmachinesina pondinSouth24Parganas. PTI ing, agents being stopped from enteringpollingbooths,andvoters being threatened or stopped CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 As cricket begins American Dream, hopes, doubts on changing traditions PAGE 1 ANCHOR SANDIP G NEW DELHI, JUNE 1 LIKE MILLIONS of immigrants in the US, Chuck Ramkissoon, the central figure of John O’Neill’s best-selling novel Netherland, wanted to live the American Dream. He did odd jobs to survive while, all along, not taking his eyes off his dream — of becoming a millionaire by making cricket great again. “Cricket was the first modern team sport in America,” he tells his friend and thenovel’sprotagonist,Hansvan den Broek. With similar ambitions of harnessing the world’s most powerful sports market, somethingcrickethasfailedtodosofar, the men’s T20 World Cup arrives in the United States on June 2. Sunday, the home team is set to play Canada in the opening game, but it is the other neighbourlyclash,IndiavsPakistanon June 9 in New York, that is expected to turn the global gaze on cricket in America. After 16 group games in the US, the ac- tion moves to the West Indies, with the final in Barbados on June 29. O’Neill has played cricket in the country of his birth, Ireland, age-group cricket in Holland where he spent his childhood, in England where he did his higher studies, and in New York, where he is living. And he knows the importance of this World T20. “I would love cricket to become big in the States. This World Cup has a great format, with true global participation. It will be very appreciated by the large US cricket community,” says the writer, whose 2008 John O’Neill, author of the novel Netherland, in which the central figure wants to make cricket great in the US. File cricket novel was compared to The Great Gatsby by The New Yorker book critic James Wood, one of the most revered voices in literary review. But“willitsparkcrickettolife in the USA? I’m not so sure”, he says.“Thegrassrootsof thegame needs more sustained investment to make that happen.” ReferringtoChuck’sdreamof building a stadium where the greats of the game would play, O’Neill says: “What was Chuck’s biggest dream? It was to build a world-class stadium in New York. Sixteen years later (after Netherland was published), New York doesn’t have one. There are just a few in the whole country. You need to build a lot of grounds in the country to make the sport big, and make it a sport in college.” Indeed. For instance, two of India’s games during the T20 World Cup would be held in a makeshift stadium at Long Island.Theplanwastotransform Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to a cricket stadium, but it was shelved due to staunch public rage. “Now who does that, converting a neighbourhood park into a cricket stadium? It (the park) is so much a part of American life,” says O’Neill. Thoughthemen’sT20World Cup will be the first big international cricket tournament in the US,thesport isnostrangertothe country with a large immigrant community, including from South Asia where cricket fuels passions. In summers, several parks in the US change into cricket pitches as communities blend into each other’s lives for thegame.AsChuckmusesinthe novel, “Every summer the parks of thiscityaretakenoverbyhundreds of cricketers, but somehow nobody notices. It’s like CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Lucknow