New Delhi: The meeting between the Election Commission of India (ECI) and senior Health Ministry Officials ended on Monday without a concrete set of actions being recommended for five poll-bound states amid omicron variant cases rising in India. It has been informed, ECI and Health Ministry will hold another round of meeting in January 2022 to iron out details and take stock of the covid situation.
In today’s meeting, ECI and Union Health Ministry discussed the rising number of covid-19 (Omicron) cases across India and vaccine coverage, especially in states going for assembly elections next year.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan briefed ECI and other senior officials about the prevailing covid situation for 5 states where assembly elections are due early next year.
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Much hullabaloo and speculations were rife ahead of the meeting between ECI and Union Health Ministry as certain sections expected postponement of assembly elections 2022 or restrictions on election rallies amid omicron scare.
The terms of Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Manipur legislative assemblies are set to end in March and that of Uttar Pradesh in May. ECI is supposed to declare the dates of the election in these states.
Meanwhile, the meeting also came after Allahabad HC requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ECI to postpone elections in Uttar Pradesh for a month or two to prevent the spread of coronavirus and its new variant omicron.
Allahabad HC had also urged to put a ban on political rallies and public meetings during the course of the poll campaign. “If rallies are not stopped, results will be worse than the second wave,” Justice Shekhar Yadav had said while making his observations.
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