Madras HC blames EC for surge in Covid cases
CHENNAI: The Madras high court on Monday observed that the Election Commission of India (ECI) was responsible for the second wave in the country and that its officials should probably be tried on murder charges for allowing political parties to hold massive rallies without following Covid-19 norms.
The first bench of chief justice Sanjib Banerjee and justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy warned ECI that the court could even stall the counting of votes on May 2 unless it produced a blueprint on April 30 on Covid-19 protocol at counting centres.
“At no cost can counting result as a catalyst for a further surge, politics or no politics, whether the counting takes place in a staggered manner or is deferred,” the court said.
An official familiar with the functioning of ECI said that the poll watchdog has told the high court that according to the Covid-19 rules notified under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) has the responsibility to ensure the rules are followed. “Commission has always emphasised in its 21.8.2020 and all subsequent instructions that the State authorities shall ensure COVID compliance in the matter of public gatherings etc. for campaign purposes. At no occasion, the Commission takes over the task of SDMA for enforcement
Aof COVID-19 instructions,” it told the high court, according to official who did not want to be named.
“The campaign [for Tamil Nadu] ended on 4.4.2021. Fortunately, the second wave of COVID-19 was yet to be visible fully by that time.
Polling was conducted following all prescribed COVID appropriate measures on 6.4.2021, which witnessed good electoral participation with full compliance of norms by all concerned,” the commistary sion told the high court, the officials said.
The election commission has come under criticism for its decision to allow political parties to wilfully flout Covid-19 protocol through huge rallies, with most participants, including the political leaders unmasked.
The body has, from time to time, issued guidelines reiterating the importance of adhering to Covid-19 protocol but has steered well clear of acting against any leader or party for flouting these. ECI has also come under fire for staggering the West Bengal assembly elections across eight phases, and for making no effort to combine later phases even after it became clear that India was facing a serious health crisis.