The Supreme Court of Allahabad today asked the Electoral Commission to postpone the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh for a month or two. It also called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ban provincial election-related rallies and consider postponing provincial elections for fear of Omicron’s highly infectious differences. The court heard this in a hearing on an unconditional bail application.
“Due to rallies and election campaign from many political parties, the results will be even worse than the second wave, looking towards Bengal election cause” Justice Shekhar Yadav said.
The judge noted that the court was in a state of flux as hundreds of cases were reported daily and the distance between the two groups was large. The judge said “As cases of the new Omicron virus are rising day by day in India, there are chances that there will be a third Covid wave ,” . He cited news reports about the number of Covid cases and said countries had forced closures.
“Looking back to earlier elections like the Gram Panchayat in UP and the West Bengal state election cause many people from covid, resulting in many deaths,” the judge said. He pointed out that political parties are organizing rallies and rallies for the upcoming UP elections and that following Covid’s policies at such events is not possible.
Judge Yadav asked the EC to ban rallies and rallies of any kind in the general election and direct political parties to campaign through Doordarshan or newspapers and not physical events. Using Article 21 of the Constitution, he said all Indians have the right to life.
Uttar Pradesh is probably the most competitive and politically important election as it also has the many Lok Sabha seats that play a key role in national elections. All political parties have already launched their major election campaign as campaigning stars are attracting large numbers of people to various rallies in the province. The Prime Minister, the Minister of the Interior, the Prime Minister, and the leaders of all the major opposition parties were seen speaking at large rallies without any restrictions on compliance with Covid’s policies. There are many more circles scheduled for the end of the month and early next year.
Crowds without masks and a lack of proper Covid conduct during the election have sparked widespread criticism. As the number of cases of Omicron variant becoming more and more viral is growing, there are concerns about pre-election political rallies turning into widespread state-of-the-art national health infrastructure that may not be fully equipped to deal with it.
Source- NDTV
