Whatever precautions, whatever safeguards and whatever anything of the sort we can do, even at this stage of the second hurricane of the elusive as well as illusive COVID-19 virus, the decision of the Election Commission in banning all election victory rallies and processions is a welcome step and needed to be followed in letter and in spirit. The situation in respect of the resurgence of the dreaded virus which seems to have ”vowed” not to let its grip around the human beings be any loose and having created grim situation across the country, can be on account of many reasons which the scientists , the virologists and the medical experts would definitely be unravelling in the days to come . However, the causes converge on close human contacts and uncovered nose and mouth coupled with non sanitisation of surfaces and not washing hands with soap and water frequently. Since victory processions mean more people celebrating the ”event” that of the success of their chosen candidate ,close contacts could spark into infections . There being already tremendous load on the existing limited medical infrastructure which in most of the cases, has proved inadequate as compared to the patients’ requirements, preventing fresh infections could give breathing time to medical management to attend to the existing case loads in a better way.
The ban by the Election Commission can be seen in the background of the serious view taken by the Madras High Court which came heavily on the poll panel for having failed in observing COVID guidelines during election campaigning. The strong view taken was to this extent that the court held the Election Commission singularly responsible for the spread. Not only that, the view expressed that the officials of the EC could be ”booked” for murder charges denotes the flagrant violations of the COVID -safety protocol during election campaigns in those states where elections were recently held including the state of West Bengal where the last phase of voting on April 29 would now lead to all focus on the day of “reckoning” on May 2 when counting of votes will be done and fate of hundreds of candidates known.
The court has also warned that it would not hesitate in even stopping the counting of votes on May 2 if the COVID guidelines were continuously flouted, implying adhering to strict observance while counting and in counting rooms. While we hope the winning candidates in the four Assembly states and one UT of Puducherry would maintain absolutely a low profile and not make it to collide with the court directions, we feel that if during so many election rallies and campaigning some strict guidelines would have been prescribed to be followed, perhaps there could have been a lot of difference observed and so much of rapid infections would have rather not taken place. Election Commission, perhaps, announcing and conducting these elections in a comparatively ”not so serious” situation as it emerged during the last week or so, must have taken for granted that SOPs in respect of the pandemic would meticulously be observed and followed which it proved otherwise. Now that the situation has reached this pass, at least expected residual gains could not be afforded to be lost hence the probable next ”cause and reason” for people assembling in numbers in victory processions need to be dealt with only by imposing a total ban. Let us not, however, term the ban imposed by the EC now as proverbial beating the slithering marks left by the ”gone” reptile. It was definitely going to have the desired impact and the effect.
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