As Covid curve and deaths surged, hardly a blip on Election Commission radar

The Madras High Court’s robust phrases for the Election Commission (EC) on Monday might have a foundation.
A scrutiny of the EC’s bulletins ranging from February 26, when it declared the schedule for 5 Assembly elections, to April 22, when it put stringent curbs on campaigning in West Bengal, exhibits that the fierce second Covid surge registered as hardly a blip on its radar.
Ironically, its ban on roadshows, car rallies, and public conferences of over 500 individuals in West Bengal got here as late as April 22 and an hour after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled his 4 rallies scheduled there the subsequent day.
This, although the Trinamool Congress and the Congress had filed petitions with the EC urging it to finish campaigning and reschedule the remaining election dates in West Bengal within the wake of the Covid surge.
Significantly, by February 26, when the ballot schedule was introduced, the Centre had already warned no less than two poll-bound states (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) a few spike of their every day new instances. But the EC merely reiterated the precautions it had put in place for the Bihar Assembly elections when the curve was steadily falling.
A day later, West Bengal was additionally added to the listing of states flagged by the Centre as reporting an growing variety of new instances.

By March 31, when the final two phases (Phase 7 and eight) of West Bengal elections had been notified, instances there have been steadily climbing, 982 new infections in comparison with nearly 320 barely 10 days earlier.
Elsewhere, the second wave was raging. A complete of 72,330 new instances had been recorded nationally and the every day dying rely had risen to greater than 450 by March 31.
By April 15, the TMC began requesting the Commission to membership the remaining phases of elections within the state. However, on April 15, the EC spokesperson denied any plans for altering the election schedule.
On April 16, solely after the every day case rely had crossed 2 lakh, the EC, for the primary time, acknowledged an “unprecedented public health situation” and imposed curbs on campaigning – however for actions between 7pm and 10 am.
It additionally prolonged the silence interval for campaigning from 48 hours to 72 hours earlier than voting day for the phases on April 22, 26, and 29. On today, the entire new instances in West Bengal was nearly 7,000.
The TMC had urged the EC to merge the remaining three phases of voting into one, and the Congress had advised that voting be postponed till after Ramzan. This, the Congress argued, would give time for the contemporary wave to wane. In its replies to each events on April 21, the EC turned down the options, citing authorized and useful resource constraints.
By this time, West Bengal’s every day Covid case rely was nearly 10,000 – a 10-fold soar since April 1.

A former senior EC officer mentioned it was legally potential to merge the final two phases since their dates of notification had been similar: March 31. “The RP Act states the gap between the date of withdrawal of candidature and the date of voting should be at least 14 days. If the Commission wanted, it could have issued a fresh notification for either postponing the 7th phase of voting till the 8th phase or reschedule the last phase and hold it with the 7th phase. This is possible since the date of notification for both phases was the same,” he mentioned,
A senior EC official, nonetheless, mentioned that even when it’s legally potential, it could have been a problem to rearrange sufficient forces to carry elections to about 70 seats collectively at quick discover.