The court requested the Election Commissioner to immediately stop rallies, meetings and order political parties to campaign through channels and newspapers.
The Allahabad High Court on Thursday urged the Central Government and the Election Commission of India to consider suspending election rallies and postponing elections in view of the growing fear of the third wave of Covid-19.
Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav, while allowing the bail application of the petitioner in one of the cases, said, “The number of patients of Omicron, a new form of coronavirus, is increasing and there is a possibility of a third wave”. He said that in view of this horrific epidemic, countries like China, Netherlands, Germany have imposed complete or partial lockdown.
#Omicron: Allahabad High Court on Thursday requested Election Commission of India to immediately ban election rallies & postpone the Assembly polls, if possible, for 1-2 months
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) December 23, 2021
The bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav also urged PM Modi to consider banning election gatherings pic.twitter.com/IPPxmun8Vj
“In the second wave, we saw that lakhs of people got infected and died,” the court said. He said that a large number of people got infected and died due to Gram Panchayat and West Bengal Assembly elections.
The court said that now the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections are near, for which all parties are mobilizing lakhs of people by holding rallies, meetings, etc. where it is not possible to follow the Covid protocol in any way. He said that if it is not stopped in time, the consequences will be direr than the second wave.
The court requested the Election Commissioner to immediately stop such rallies, gatherings and order political parties to campaign through channels and newspapers.
The court said, if possible, the elections to be held in February should be postponed for a month or two because if there is life, then election rallies, meetings will continue to take place. We have got the right to life as a fundamental right in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
Appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the COVID vaccination campaign, the court urged him to take strict measures in view of the dreadful pandemic situation and consider stopping rallies, gatherings and postponing the impending elections as ‘Jaan hai to Jahan hai’.
The court has made this appeal in view of the threat of new variants of Covid while allowing the bail application of a person named Sanjay Yadav.