In order to preserve social separation for COVID-19, voters in Uttar Pradesh will get an extra hour to vote, according to Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra, who also reaffirmed that Assembly elections in UP and four other states will go ahead as scheduled. “To guarantee voting with social distancing, the Commission has decided to lengthen poling time by an hour – across the state,” Mr Chandra said, bringing back a one-hour extension ordered before of polls in Bengal, Assam, and three other states earlier this year.
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Mr Chandra also announced further precautions aimed at limiting the virus’s spread as much as possible, such as vaccinating all poll workers twice and installing more polling booths. In February-March, voters in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, and Uttarakhand will go to the polls, even as the country braces for a third wave of Covid cases, fueled in no little part by the Omicron variety. Mr Chandra said today that all political parties in Uttar Pradesh, including the ruling BJP and the opposition Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and Congress, were in favour of the election being held.
He stated that all parties have made proposals on how to limit the spread of cases, which he believes would occur when each stages enormous demonstrations to support their candidates. Only four cases of the more infectious (than Delta) Omicron form, whose numbers are growing at an alarming rate, have been documented from UP, according to him. Following campaign rallies hosted by major political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, at least two states that had Assembly elections this year – Bengal and Assam – observed an increase in Covid cases.
Similar procedures were declared before of those elections by the leading polling organisation, as they are now. The topic of election rallies in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and one with a less-than-stellar healthcare system, has already been red-flagged, with political parties taking potshots at one other. He also discussed the ECI’s efforts to ensure a peaceful assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Here are a few examples: On the day of the election, voters will be able to vote from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. Previously, the hours were 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
All voting booths will be equipped with VVPATs. To guarantee openness in the election process, roughly 1 lakh voting stations will have live webcasting capabilities. The poll workers will be completely immunised before going to the polls across the state. The Election Commission will come to the doorsteps of those over the age of 80, people with impairments, and people afflicted by Covid who are unable to vote in a voting booth. At 800 voting places, female cops will be deployed. There are 15 crore voters in Uttar Pradesh, with 53 lakhs of them being first-time voters.
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In UP, there are already widespread violations of Covid standards; images from a Congress-sponsored women’s marathon, a rally by Samajwadi Party head Akhilesh Yadav in Unnao, and a roadshow by Home Minister Amit Shah in Hardoi all showed individuals disobeying the regulations last week. Mr Chandra led a three-member committee to examine vote preparations in Uttar Pradesh, prompting today’s comments from the Election Commission. This came after the Allahabad High Court requested that the poll commission consider postponing the election (in UP and other states) because to the Omicron variation.
