M A I N   N E W S

US poll suspense escalates
Florida SC adjourns
From Vasantha Arora

WASHINGTON, Nov 21 — Suspense escalated in the USA as Florida’s Supreme Court, after hearing impassioned legal arguments on the disputed manual vote recounts in the state, adjourned without indicating the timing of its ruling on which hinges the fate of the presidential hopefuls.

The court’s decision is widely expected by Wednesday, which will finally help choose either Mr Al Gore (Democrat) or Mr George Bush (Republican) as the President.

In a related development, Florida’s Democratic Attorney-General Bob Butterworth asked state officials to reverse their decision to reject hundreds of absentee votes from overseas military personnel — a move which Bush supporters hope could add more votes to the Republican tally.

Florida’s poll authority threw out more than 1,500 foreign absentee ballots out of a total of about 3,500 for a variety of reasons, including lack of a postmark. It is not known how many of those were from military personnel, who were expected to favour Mr Bush.

In a nationally televised 140-minute court session in Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, the seven-judge panel heard Mr Gore’s lawyers favouring inclusion of the manual recounts in the final vote tally. Counsel for Mr Bush and that of Florida’s Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris, responsible for certifying election results, opposed the demand, urging their outright rejection.

The Bush team stuck to its known position that Harris was bound by law to certify the election within seven days of the voting.

Mr Gore’s lawyers questioned Harris’s competence in setting a deadline for certification that expired before the conclusion of the manual recounts and argued that the court had the authority to delay the final result to include recount results — the demand opposed by the Bush team. Such a move on the part of the court would be tantamount to usurping the role of the state legislature, it contended.

The Democratic side argued that there was still time to conduct the manual recounts and to include them in the state total ahead of the mid-December deadline under which Florida’s electoral votes must be cast to formally seal the presidency.

Away from the Tallahassee courtroom, manual vote counting was in progress in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, bringing in a trickle of extra votes for Mr Gore. But in Broward County, its election supervisor Jane Carroll quit, stopping the process. She could not take the long hours anymore on health grounds.

Outside the court, supporters of the two candidates held demonstrations in support of their respective demands.

Both candidates maintained a low profile, awaiting the outcome of the court battle. The Vice-President watched the Supreme Court hearing on television at his official residence in Washington, DC, while Mr Bush attended office at the Texas Statehouse in Austin, carrying out “a routine day in the life of a governor.” — IANS

Karnataka joins Tamil Nadu
Hunt for Veerappan

BANGALORE, Nov 21 (PTI) — A day after Tamil Nadu resumed its operations, Karnataka today launched a “full-swing” offensive by its STF to nab forest brigand Veerappan inducting an Additional Director-General of Police to head the force.

ADGP H.T. Sangliana of the Karnataka Reserve Police, who would head the STF, was on his way to the STF base near the Satyamangalam forests to oversee the operations, Chief Minister S.M. Krishna told the State Assembly.

He said he would also visit New Delhi tomorrow to meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani and seek the Centre’s help in nabbing the outlaw.

He said DGP C. Dinkar would leave for Chennai tomorrow for discussions with Tamil Nadu officials on coordinating and launching joint STF operations against the bandit, who held Kannada film icon Rajkumar hostage for over three months and released him last week.

The STF operations by both states were suspended after the abduction on July 31.

The Chief Minister said the STF had been given “full powers” to arrest Veerappan and bring him to book.

Veerappan is charged with killing over 100 persons, including police and forest officials, and poaching a large number of elephants and smuggling of their tusk and sandalwood.

In his statement, Mr Krishna avoided any reference to emissary P. Nedumaran, a self-confessed supporter of the LTTE, but declared that the state police would curb with iron hand any activities of terrorist and extremist outfits and their supporters.

Mr Krishna, who narrated the events that unfolded since the abduction of Rajkumar and the steps taken in consultation with Tamil Nadu to secure the release of the mega star, stoutly defended his government’s stand to stick to the path of negotiations to end the hostage crisis.

He said as the government was aware of the grave consequences that may have on the safety of Rajkumar and three other hostages in the event of its contemplating alternatives, including the deployment of the police, it decided to pursue a negotiated settlement.

Apparently replying to critics who had blamed the government for failure to nab Veerappan, Mr Krishna said: “I plead for a sense of perspective and balance in judging the action taken by this government in securing the release of Rajkumar and bringing Veerappan to book”.

Mr Krishna said the government was ready to honour its assurance on humanitarian grounds on the release of TADA detainees but it would be done only in accordance with law.