Sr. Advocate Aggarwala calls for delinking UP polls from other 4 states
Sr. Advocate Aggarwala calls for delinking UP polls from other 4 states
Suggestion comes in the wake of sudden Covid surge
New Delhi, Jan. 7 (Delhi Crown): Senior Advocate and president of Chairman of the All-India Bar Association (AIBA) Adish C. Aggarwala on Friday wrote to the Election Commission to delink the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly from the other four states – Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa amid the sudden Covid surge in the country.
A few days ago, Aggarwala had called for the deferment of all the five Assembly polls in the wake of rising Covid cases.
Citing a reason for his suggestion to delink the UP election (from four other states), Aggarwala said that there was gap of nearly a month between the completion of the tenure of the UP Assembly and the four other states.
In his letter, Aggarwala mentioned that India had 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,” he added in his letter.
He also requested to the Election Commission to ban in-person rallies, road shows and meetings in these states as pandemic protocol cannot be ensured, and called for a punitive action against violators.
The Senior Advocate also contended in his letter that the devastation caused by the second wave of Covid-19 was due to “public negligence during the process of Assembly elections to four States — Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal – besides the Union Territory of Poducherry”.
In the past Aggarwala has served as Senior Additional Advocate General of Govt. of Haryana, Additional Advocate General of Governments of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, Special Counsel for Govt. of India. I have authored many books of legal and political importance, and edited an English fortnightly.
He said the discussion to hold these Assembly elections were being held at the Election Commission of India, even as the whole world was strategizing to defeat and blunt the spread of Omicron variant of Covid-9.
Over the past couple of days speculation have been rife in Indian political circles that the Election Commission might soon announce the schedule of five Assembly elections. Aggarwala said in his letter that by April-May 2022 the virulence and spread of Covid-19 too would improve vastly, as per expert analysis and estimation.
“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, declaring a common election schedule for all these 5 States and scheduling the multiple phase election to them makes little intelligent sense,” he added.
