chennai l wednesday l november 06, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l vellore EDITION Pawar, 83, hints at retirement from parliamentary politics The NCP (SP) chief on Tuesday said that he was contemplating whether to seek another Rajya Sabha term after his current tenure ends in 2026 ‘one Has to stop, step aside at some point’ Will continue to work for the people Speaking at a campaign rally for grand-nephew Yugendra Pawar at Supa in Maharashtra’s Baramati assembly constituency, Sharad Pawar said that he has to stop at some point for the new leadership to take over. The veteran leader, who has won 14 elections in his political career, entered the Maharashtra assembly in 1967 and became the chief minister in 1978 ■ ■ The decision not to seek Parliamentary position does not mean a complete retirement from the social sphere, Pawar clarified | P8 “I will not be in power, but will continue to work for the people, work for the drought-affected regions, marginalised segments of society,” he said, adding that he will now focus on installing a new leadership SEVEN times Pawar won the Lok Sabha polls; he entered Rajya Sabha in 2014 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 US votes to elect its 47th President Agencies Republican vice presidential nominee J D Vance and his wife Usha Vance arrive to vote at the St Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church on Tuesday | AP/PTI `356cR to `940cr Land trouble delays ECR project, cost up three-fold MILLIONS of Americans on Tuesday headed towards polling stations across the United States to elect the 47th President between Republican leader Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in an election billed as one of the most consequential contests for the White House in decades. Voting across the country began at 6 am local time. New Hampshire was the first state where polling started. According to US media reports, the early hours of voting Land acquisition for the sixlaning of the 10.3-km stretch of the East Coast Road from Thiruvanmiyur to Akkarai, a busy stretch in Chennai, has been dragging on for over a decade, pushing the land acquisition cost three-fold in 11 years. The cost of acquisition which went up from `356 crore in 2012 to `756 crore in 2019, escalated to `940 crore as of February last year, sources said. This is one of Chennai’s most expensive road projects, with a budget of `1,090 crore allocated for building just one lane on either side, along with stormwater drains. Of the total project cost, `159 crore was earmarked for civil work. Multiple sources from government agencies told TNIE that since the project’s commencement in 2013, the land acquisition process has encountered numerous issues. These include legal challenges, demands for higher compensation for both private and natham land parcels, opposition from influential property owners in acquiring Open Space Reservation (OSR) lands from layouts, difficulties in transferring land parcels from government agencies, erroneous payment to landowners and alignment changes for stor mwater drains. While land acquisition poses a significant challenge for several infrastructure projects in the state — including construction of railway tracks and others — the ECR project has a dubious distinction. Not only there are issues in getting private land, but acquiring public and government land parcels, too, remains problematic. According to sources, shifting of various government offices and utilities set up on the road was delayed due to difficulties in finding suitable alternative sites to relocate them.  P5 votes were sent in either by mail or by visiting the polling station in person. According to an Associated Press report, Republican voters were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections. Both Harris and Trump are fighting for every vote, especially in the seven key battleground states of Arizona, Ne- Results could take several days Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon said results may take several days, as vote tallies will come in at different times across states, and close results could delay a final call. “We may not know the results of this election for several days,” he said vada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. The race remained stubbornly deadlocked for weeks, with some of the election forecasters giving 60-year-old Vice President Harris an edge over former President Trump, 78, in some of the key battleground states like Pennsylvania. After casting his vote in Florida, Trump said said if he lost the elections, he would be the first one to acknowledge it if it’s a “fair election”. This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago. Right to take over pvt property not total: SC Not all pvt property can be taken over for common good: 7:2 verdict S u c h i t r a Kalyan M o h an t y @ New Delhi b an b u s e lv an @ Chennai were smooth with scattered reports of extreme weather, ballot printing errors, and technical problems causing delays. The early votes included record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. Over 82 million voters across the US had already voted before the main election day. These Postulating rigiD economic theory The Supreme Court in a 7:2 ruling on Tuesday held that states were not empowered under the Constitution to take over all privately-owned resources for distribution to serve the “common good”. A nine-judge bench of headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, however, said states can stake claim over private properties in certain cases. With this, the court settled the Property Owners Association vs State of Maharashtra case, which is one of the oldest pending before the court. While Justice B V Nagarathna partially concurred with the majority, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia wrote a dissenting verdict. The question before the court was whether “material resources of the community” in Article 39(b) could include privately owned property . The case also involved chal- “In Bhim Singhji, Justice Krishna Iyer cited Karl Marx to observe that taking over large conglomerations of land is necessary to make Article 39 a ‘constitutional reality’... (It) amounts to endorsing a particular economic ideology for our economy,” the CJI said lenges to Chapter VIII-A of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act, 1976 introduced in 1986. The chapter allowed the Mumbai Building Repair and Reconstruction Board to acquire certain “cessed properties” for restoration with the consent of 70% of the residents. The majority verdict authored by the CJI criticised the opinion of Justice Krishna Iyer in a 1978 case, where the latter ruled that all privately owned resources can be acquired by the state for distribution under Article 39(b). “The doctrinal error in the Krishna Iyer approach was, postulating a rigid economic theory, which advocates for greater state control over private resources, as the exclusive basis for constitutional governance,” the verdict said. However, Justice Nagarathna found the observations against Justice Krishna Iyer harsh and unwarranted. The bench said the vision of the framers of the Constitution to establish economic democracy and trust the wisdom of the elected governments was the “backbone of the high growth rate of India’s economy... To scuttle the constitutional vision by imposing a single economic dogma which views the acquisition of private property by the state as the ultimate goal would undermine the values and principles of our Constitutional framework,” the verdict said. SC upholds U.P. Board of Madarsa Edu act, nullifies HC order Wrong call The court said the HC had ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater by striking down the entire law on the ground that conferment of higher edu degrees were not constitutional S u c h i t r a Kalyan M o h an t y @ New Delhi In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act 2004, and set aside the Allahabad High Court’s order declaring the Act unconstitutional. “We have upheld the constitutional validity except for a small extent. , The HC erred in holding that the statute is bound to be struck down if it violates secularism,” a threejudge bench led by the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said. The court, however, held that the Madarsa Act, to the extent it regulates higher education, including the degrees of Fazil and Kamil (bachelor and postgraduate level degrees given by madrasas), is in conflict with the UGC Act and hence unconstitutional. The court said a statute could be declared ultra vires only on two grounds — being beyond the legislative competence or violating fundamental rights or any other Constitutional provision. As for regulations relating to the quality of the education, the state is empowered to enforce them. The Act does not directly interfere with the day-today administration, the bench pointed out. Govt to sell 2.5% in HZL to raise `5K cr MO N I K A YA D A V @ New Delhi THE Centre on Tuesday announced its plan to divest up to 2.5% of its stake in Hindustan Zinc through an offer for sale (OFS) set to commence on November 6. The floor price for this offering has been set at `505 per share. The government is likely to raise `5,000 crore through the OFS. The government plans to sell approximately 5.28 crore shares amounting to 1.25% of the equity, with an option to add another 1.25% of equity The offer . will be available for non-retail investors starting November 6. These investors will have the opportunity to express their interest in carrying forward any unallocated bids to the following day November 7. , Retail investors will have the opportunity to submit their bids on November 7. According to OFS regulations, only retail investors and employees will be permitted to place their bids on Thursday Non-retail investors . who place their bids on Wednesday and opt to carry forward any unallocated bids to the following day will also have the option to revise their bids. Hindustan Zinc, a subsidiary of Vedanta, is a major producer of zinc, lead, and silver. Based in Udaipur, the company operates various mines and smelters, focusing on mining practices, resource conservation, and maintaining its position in metal production. The government holds 29.5% in the company . stalin inaugurates new IT park in kovai CM inaugurated the ELCOT IT Park at Vilankurichi on Tuesday. The 2.94 lakh sqft six-storey IT park, built at `158.32 crore, is expected to generate 3,500 jobs | P4 no end to violence against women, be it inside homes or out in the streets 3 girls saved from bonded Girl on trip to Pondy raped labour in Chennai home by auto driver and tourists Express News Service @ Chennai Gujarat accident A temporary structure that collapsed at a construction site on the MumbaiAhmedabad Bullet Train corridor in Gujarat’s Anand district, killing three persons on Tuesday. The incident took place at Vasad village | ANI A 17-year-old girl from Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and two 20-year-old girls, one from AP and another from Poonamallee, who were employed as bonded labourers at a sprawling house at Valasaravakkam in Chennai, were rescued by a team of officials on Tuesday. Medical examination of the girls showed they had suffered multiple bodily injuries from years of physical abuse. The house owner, Z Rashida (50), has been arrested and she will be remanded soon, sources said. Rashida owns an imitation jewellery shop in Anna Nagar. Her husband Zaheer Hussain works abroad. Rashida had allegedly loaned `3 lakh each to the girls from Andhra Pradesh, while the girl from Poonamallee had been employed for six years after being given a loan of `1.5 lakh. The 20year-old from Andhra Pradesh had been working there for three years. They were not paid any monthly salary . Sources said that the minor girl’s father suffered a paralytic attack five years ago.  P5 E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ Puducherry A 16-year-old Mumbai girl, who came to Puducherry for a trip along with her parents last week, was allegedly kidnapped and raped, first by an auto driver and then by a group of tourists, after she stepped out of the house due to a tiff with her parents. She was spotted on P u d u ch e r r y B e a ch Road on November 1, after police launched a search for her based on a missing complaint filed on October 31. The Grand Ba- zaar police have arrested an auto driver from Kotakuppam in Villupuram and three other men from Chennai. They are on the lookout for another man from Chennai. According to police sources, the girl, who had been staying at a relative’s house with her parents, left the house at 9.10 pm on October 30 after an argument with her parents. Police sources said that she then boarded an auto when the driver, Khawaja Moinuddin (34) of Kottakuppam, told her that he would show her around Puducherry  . P5 girl, father held for woman’s murder | P2 h ar d t a l k Yechury gone, CPM moves towards Karat line to keep off Congress on core issues A N I L S @ T’Puram Withdrawing from the line proffered by former CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury , the Left party’s current leadership feels it should distance itself from the Congress on core issues such as neo-liberal policies and stance against communal politics. The draft of the Political Review report, presented before the three-day central committee meet that concluded on Monday, is also highly critical of the CPI for promoting the INDIA bloc at the cost of the Left parties. The draft says the INDIA bloc can continue as an Opposition platform but the CPM should protect its electoral interests in its traditional strongholds such as Kerala and West Bengal, adding that the party must work out its tactics and adopt a statespecific approach. Post-Yechury, the CPM has been taking a guarded approach towards furthering any ties with the Congress. The draft leans more towards the Kerala CPM-backed Prakash Karat line that insists on keeping the Congress at bay With Karat be. ing the Politburo coordinator, the draft has chosen to toe a more hardline approach. “The INDIA bloc, as a loose platform that seeks to gather secular Opposition parties, mainly for uniting and pooling anti-BJP votes, should continue. Its main focus of work will be Parliament and periodical elections,” says the report, add- ing that the CPM cannot be part of any broad alliance with the Congress especially in Kerala and West Bengal. The draft report also flags the dangers of the INDIA bloc occupying the Left’s political space. “We should counter any tendency to substitute the independent role and activities of the Party with the INDIA bloc. We must also be clear about the class character of the main party in the INDIA bloc - the Congress,” says the draft. According to the draft, any blurring of the CPM’s distinctive policies and identity will be detrimental to its growth in the country. It also notes that the BJP has made headway in Kerala, at the CPM’s expense.