chennai l tuesday l may 14, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l late city EDITION SC to hear plea for timely release of voter turnout data on Friday Plea by Association for Democratic Reforms seeks a direction to the poll panel to put out station-wise voter turnout data within 48 hrs of close of voting suspicions about turnout data’s accuracy ‘Address delay to uphold voters’ trust’ The final voter turnout data for the first two phases were published by the Election Commission on April 30, by which time 11 days had elapsed since the first phase voting and four days since the second phase, the plea said. The delay, coupled with the unusually high revision of over 5% in the poll panel’s press note of April 30 has raised suspicions about the data’s accuracy, it said ■ To uphold voters’ confidence, the Supreme Court must direct the EC to disclose on its website, scanned legible copies of turnout data of all polling stations within 48 hours of close of polling, the plea said ■ The court agreed to list the plea for hearing on Friday after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, sought its urgent listing Form 17C Part-1 has details of Votes Recorded by each polling station 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 CBSE results: Class 10 pass rate highest at 99.84 S u b ashini v ijayak u mar @ Chennai In the class 10 and 12 board examination results released by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday Tamil Nadu students regis, tered pass percentages of 99.84 and 98.74 respectively Notably . , the state’s class 10 pass rate is the highest in the country . At the national level, the class 10 pass percentage stood at 93.6, a rise of 0.48 percentage points from last year; while that of class 12 saw a marginal increase of 0.65 percentage points from last year to 87.98. Among the 74,337 state students (40,325 boys, 34,012 girls) who took the class 12 boards, 73,398 (39,679 boys, 33,719 girls) managed to pass. In terms of ranking, neighbouring states of Kerala (99.91%), Telangana (99.15%) and Andhra Pradesh (98.96%) scored above TN. The Chennai region, comprising of parts of AP TN, Tel, angana, Puducherry and Andam a n & N i c o b a r I s l a n d s, registered pass percentages of 99.30 (class 10) and 98.47 (class Teacher offers sweet to students after class 12 results in Chennai | p jawahar 12) in the boards, an improvement from last year’s figures of 99.14 and 97.40 respectively The . region took the third place, following Thiruvananthapuram and Vijayawada. While the pass percentage of girls was higher than that of boys by a margin of 6.4 percentage points at the national level Chadoora, Charar, Ganderbal segments recorded more than 45% votes 1 1 Biggies in their turf 1 | Prime Minister Narendra Modi with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during a road show in Varanasi on Monday | PTI | P7 2 2 | Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka at their first public meeting in Rae Bareli days after he filed his papers for that seat | PTI Four-time Nagai MP, CPI leader Selvaraj passes away aged 67 e x pr e ss n e ws s e r v ic e @ Chennai/Nagapattinam Senior Communist Party of India leader and four-time Nagapattinam MP M Sel, varaj, passed away on Monday morning. The 67-year-old is survived by his wife Kamalavathanam and two daughters. CPI sources said Selvaraj had been grappling with serious illness for the past three years, with frequent episodes of hospitalisation. Last week, he was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai, where he succumbed to his ill health at 2.40 am on Monday . A committed CPI cadre right from his student years, the leader was elected from the Nagapattinam constituency in 1989, 1996, 1998 and 2019. He did not contest in the 2024 LS election due to his poor health; the party fielded Vai Selvaraj instead. Prior to his rise as a CPI national committee member, Selvaraj held numerous student and youth wing positions. He fiercely advocated for the Cauvery delta farmers and played an important role in mobilising them to demand action from the centre regarding the water disputes with Karnataka. Most notably, in July 1989, Selvaraj successfully organised a massive human chain protest that stretched for 110km from Thanjavur to Vedaranyam, demanding the constitution of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.  P7 M Selvaraj (67), veteran CPI leader Champion of the deltas Selvaraj fiercely advocated for Cauvery delta farmers and played an important role in mobilising them to demand action from the centre regarding the water disputes with Karnataka. Most notably, in July 1989, he organised a massive human chain protest that stretched for 110km from Thanjavur to Vedaranyam, demanding the constitution of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal. Highest Srinagar voter turnout in decades; better 4th phase polling P r e e tha N air @ New Delhi After registering a dip in voter turnout in the first three phases, the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections saw a 67.25% turnout in 96 seats across 10 states and Union territories. In the 2019 polls, the polling percentage in these 96 seats was 69.12%. “Polling in the fourth phase of general elections 2024 closed at 6 pm, but a large number of voters were still in the queue at polling stations,” the Election Commission said in a statement, adding these were provisional figures. Voting was also held in Srinagar, one of the three parliamentary constituencies of Kashmir. Polling was brisk by Srinagar’s standards — it recorded 37.98% voter turnout — the highest in decades. In 2019, it was just 14.43%. Srinagar’s highest ever turnout was 40.9% in 1996. This is the first general election in Kashmir after the hollowing out of Article 370 in 2019. Chadoora, Charar-i- bengal Violence People stand in queues to cast their votes at a polling station in Fakeer Gujri on the outskirts of Srinagar, in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections on Monday | PTI In this combo, BJP candidate Dilip Ghosh’s personal security (left) and a TMC worker (right) got injured after clashes between rival groups in the Susunia area of Bardhaman-Durgapur seat Sharief, Ganderbal, Kangan, Khansahib and Shopian Assembly segments recorded more than 45% turnout. West Bengal recorded 78.37%, followed by Andhra Pradesh (76.5%), Odisha (73.97%), Madhya Pradesh (70.98%), Jharkhand (65.2%), Telangana (64.87%), UP (58.05%) and Bihar (57.06%). The low voter turnout in the last three phases has been a cause as the NDA alliance of the BJP , Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Pawan Kalyan-led Jana Sena Party (JSP) is taking on the ruling YSRCP led by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy . With Andhra Pradesh and Telangana concluding the polling, the fourth phase will also mark the culmination of voting in South where expects a big haul of seats. Scattered incidents of violence were reported in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. of worry for the Election Commission and political parties. The fourth round is crucial for the BJP as it hopes to make considerable gains in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha. In 2019, the BJP and its allies won 47 of these 96 seats. One of the main highlights of the fourth phase is the simultaneous election to all 175 Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh and 28 in Odisha. The contest in Andhra is keenly watched India gets strategic depth with 10-yr deal to run chabahar port Y e shi S e l i @ New Delhi India and Iran signed a contract on Monday allowing India Ports Global Ltd (IPGL) to equip and operate the strategically located Shahid Beheshti Port in Iran’s Chabahar for 10 years. “We are scripting a new chapter in bilateral partnership. The contract will give a boost to regional connectivity and India’s linkages with Afghanistan, Cen- tral Asia and Eurasia,” the Ministry of External Affairs s p o ke s p e r s o n , R a n d h i r Jaiswal, said. The IPGL will invest approximately $120 million in equipping the port. India has also offered a credit window equivalent to $250 million, for mutually identified projects that will improve port-related infrastructure in Chabahar. Shahid Beheshti is the closest Iranian port to India. The deep sea port can accommo- date large cargo ships. It is a more economical and stable alternative route for Indian goods to reach landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asian countries, bypassing Pakistan. In fact, more than 2.5 million tonnes of wheat and 2,000 tonnes of pulses have been trans-shipped from India to Afghanistan through the port since IPGL, through its wholly owned subsidiary India Ports Global Chabahar Free Zone (IPGCFZ), took over its operations in 2018. sushil Modi passes away Senior BJP leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who was suffering from cancer, died on Monday night in a New Delhi hospital. He was 72 | P9 in the class 12 examination, it was less so in Tamil Nadu as well as in Chennai region. The pass percentage of boys and girls were 98.40 and 99.14 respectively in TN while it was 98.05 and 98.96 respectively in Chennai region. Among the schools in the Tamil Nadu, government aided schools recorded a pass rate of 100%, government schools 98.46%, independent schools 98.78% a n d Ke n d r i ya Vi dya l aya schools 98.75%. However, there are only 20 government aided CBSE schools in the state.  P7 AAP MP Swati Maliwal alleges assault by PA of Kejriwal U J W A L J A L A L I @ New Delhi Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal was allegedly physically assaulted at the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday following , which she alerted the Delhi Police but did not file any formal complaint. Coming as it did in the midst of the general elections and with the AAP refusing to clear the air, the issue soon acquired political overtones. The police received a PCR call at 9.34 am from Maliwal, who was at Kejriwal’s residence, alleging that she had been assaulted by one of the chief minister’s staff. “As per information, the lady is saying that she is at the C M ’s h o u s e and has been assaulted by CM’s PA Bibhav Kumar,” the note of the PCR call written by a policeman read. Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Manoj Meena said the local Station House Officer along with other staff reached the CM’s residence but didn’t find her there. Maliwal, the former Delhi Commission for Women chief, later visited the Civil Lines police station but did not give any formal complaint. The National Commission for Women then stepped in and said it will write to the Delhi Police seeking an Action Taken Report within three days. While no official reaction has come from Maliwal or the AAP, the BJP slammed Kejriwal and demanded accountability. Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva sought a thorough investigation into the entire incident. Lalu’s bid to return the gift to daughter in Saran Nellai ryot sets himself on R A M A S H A N K A R @ Patna Billboard collapse kills eight A 100-feet-tall illegal billboard fell over a petrol pump in Ghatkopar area of Mumbai, killing at least eight and trapping about 100 people underneath it FOR voters of Bihar’s Saran L o k S ab h a c o n s t i t u e n cy (Chapra before 2008 delimitation), the contest between RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad’s family and BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy is nothing new. In the past two polls, it was a direct fight between Rudy and RJD candidates linked to the Lalu family. In 2014, Rudy trounced Lalu’s wife and ex-Bihar CM Rabri Devi by 40,000 votes while in 2019, he sent Chandrika Rai, father-in-law of Lalu’s son Tej Pratap Yadav, packing, raising his margin to 1.38 lakh votes. This time, there is a lot of interest in the Saran joust as Lalu’s daughter Rohini Acharya is making her electoral debut. A medical doctor, Rohini is settled in Singapore. She was in the news in 2022 when she donated one of her kidneys to her ailing dad, an act that won her praise even from Lalu’s rivals. To return the favour, Lalu is working hard to get Rohini elected. Despite health issues, he has addressed a number of rallies and held meetings with RJD cadre. He has deeper connect in the constituency, which he represented four times till he was disqualified in 2013 following his conviction in the fodder scam. Rohini has an uphill task to defeat Rudy a veteran who has , worked with both Atal Bihari and Narendra Modi as a Union minister. But the Lalu scion is confident. “I am not a novice. I Rohini Acharya (left) and Rajiv Pratap Rudy Illustration: Mandar Pardikar am aware of what’s happening in Bihar. I have learnt the nuances of politics from my father, who is also my political guru,” she told this paper. As for Rudy he is showcasing , his work for the region besides riding on the Modi image. But he acknowledges the Lalu factor. “It’s not Rohini in the fray . The real opponent is Lalu, who is fighting from behind the scenes,” Rudy said. Rohini is relying on RJD’s traditional Muslim-Yadav vote bank and EBCs. She has the daunting task of carrying forward her father’s le gacy. But Saran’s political landscape is no longer the same as during the Lalu reign. fire, runs into collectorate e x pr e ss n e ws s e r v ic e @ Tirunelveli In an episode that brought to mind the horror of 2017, when a family of four immolated themselves at the Tirunelveli collectorate, a 36year-old far mer set himself afire on the banks of the Thamirabharani and ran into the collectorate on Monday . The man, identified as Sankara Subbu, a resident of Maruthakulam village, was rescued by police and admitted to the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital (TvMCH) with severe burn injuries. One po- liceman sustained minor burns on his hands. “Subbu had a dispute regarding a 1.5-acre parcel of land with his first cousins Pichai Kumar and Muppidathi for the past one year. He had filed a complaint with the Moondradaippu police. However, the of ficials alle g edly asked him to approach the court. Meanwhile, a quarrel erupted between Subbu and his cousins on Sunday night. Their relatives called the police control room, and police asked both parties to visit the police station for an inquiry on Monday morning. Continued on P7