New Delhi: The chairman of All India Bar Association (AIBA) has written to the Election Commission, urging the latter to delink elections to Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from those of other four states – Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand.
“I make this representation after having witnessed the scourge of SARS COV-2, the Corona virus pandemic and its two destructive waves. The second wave of Covid-19 during March to May, 2021 is the Independent India’s worst human and sociological tragedy, which was worse than the Partition itself, as it resulted in the death of 4.83 lakh people,” wrote Dr. Adish C Aggarwala, a designated senior advocate who besides being the chairman of AIBA, is also a former vice-chairman of the statutory Bar Council of India and had served as a senior additional advocate general of government of Haryana, additional advocate general of governments of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, and a special counsel for government of India.
The elected tenure of Uttar Pradesh Assembly is slated to come to an end a good 51 days after the other four states. The population of Uttar Pradesh is nearly four times that of these four states put together. Since the electorate size of the State of Uttar Pradesh alone is more than 5 times of all the remaining 4 states taken together and since there is a substantial gap of clear 51 days, between the expiry of the term of its existing Assembly from the remaining Assemblies, Dr. Aggarwala requested the EC to avoid declaring a common election schedule for all these 5 States and scheduling the multiple phase election to them. Also, he mentioned that it was not constitutionally mandated to have a common election schedule for Uttar Pradesh along with the other four states, as the state has its tenure up to the month of May, 2022.
In the letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner, he also requested the CEC to ban in-person rallies, road shows and meetings in these states as pandemic protocol cannot be ensured. He further sought punitive action against violators, besides publication of exclusive campaign guidelines during these pandemic times.
Referrring to the “devastation” caused by the second wave of Covid-19 due to public negligence during the process of Assembly elections to 4 States — Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal – besides the Union Territory of Puducherry, Dr. Aggarwala wrote that he was “constrained to recall the avoidable human tragedy because just when the third wave of Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been rearing its ugly head, the Election Commission of India is finalising dates to hold Assembly elections to five more states — Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand — in near-future”.
In this context, he explained how the potential human tragedy could be minimised, if not totally avoided, if only the Election Commission of India delinks Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with that of the other four states since there was a “reasonable” time gap of 51 days between the expiration of terms of the existing State Legislative Assemblies of Goa, Manipur Punjab, and Uttarakhand, where the terms are expiring in a span of 9 days (between March 15, 2022 and March 23, 2022).
He pointed out that an almost identical situation existed during elections to Assemblies of Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand in 2019. At that time the Election Commission of India had delinked Jharkhand Assembly polls and conducted elections to Haryana and Maharashtra Legislative Assemblies on October 21, 2019. Election to Jharkhand Legislative Assembly was held between November 30, 2019 and December 20, 2019 for which a separate election schedule was announced.
“Two reputed scientists — Manindra Agrawal of IIT-Kanpur and M Vidyasagar of IIT-Hyderabad, co-founders of the Sutra model — are of the opinion that that in the “worst-case scenario”, daily new Covid-19 cases may be in the range of 1.5 to 1.8 million in February, 2022. That may happen if the new Omicron variant completely evades immunities acquired either naturally or through vaccination. It is, therefore, respectfully submitted that the Assembly election schedule to the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh be de-linked from the election schedule of the remaining four States — Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur — at the earliest in view of prevailing Covid-19 situation,” Dr. Aggarwala stated.
He further wrote that commencing the actual poll process in the middle of February 2022 itself will “unnecessarily multiply the risk of spread of Covid-19 and is totally unwarranted”. He claimed that none of his suggestions will “infringe the constitutional mandate of either the Election Commission of India or the State of Uttar Pradesh”.
– global bihari bureau
