Amid rising Omicron cases, Allahabad HC requests PM Modi to delay UP Polls

Amid the rising cases of Omicron in India, the Allahabad High Court on Thursday issued an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to consider postponing the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections in 2022. With political parties holding massive rallies across the state to bolster support ahead of the crucial polls, there has been a looming threat of a resurgence of infections given that the highly transmissible new variant has made its way into India. 

Dealing with a bail order, the Allahabad HC bench headed by Justice Shekhar Yadav urged the Election Commission to immediately issue direction to stop political parties from organising political rallies in the state. Appealing to the election body and PM Modi, Justice Yadav suggested that the polls be delayed for another few months since 'if there was life, hope would remain' (jaan hai toh jahaan hai.) On a side note, the court also lauded India's mass vaccination campaign and praised PM Modi for providing free Coronavirus vaccination to the people of the country.

"...order the political parties to do their campaign and publicity not by mobilizing the crowd in the rally and meeting, but through the medium of Doordarshan, newspapers and if possible, postpone the elections scheduled to be held in February for a month or two because if life would remain, the election rallies, meetings will continue to happen," the bench noted.

The new COVID-19 variant has prompted the Uttar Pradesh government to tighten its measures in order to control the spread of the virus. According to the new guidelines issued by the state government, people travelling to UP need to undergo RT-PCR tests. Furthermore, all the people who test positive for Coronavirus need to undergo genome tests. So far, the state has detected two cases of Omicron. 

PM Modi holds review meeting

Earlier today, December 23, PM Modi held a meeting to review the COVID situation in India. The meeting had in attendance top health officials from the Centre and the state. He was briefed about the various actions taken since November 25, 2021 when the first advisory of the Union Health Ministry was shared with States.

Revised travel advisory for international passengers, meetings with states/UTs on COVID-19 public health response measures, ramping up vaccination, installation of Oxygen supply equipment, etc., was discussed with the PM.

The Omicron tally in India has breached the 300-mark. Maharashtra is the state with the most confirmed cases at 65, followed by Delhi with 64, and Telangana with 24. A total of 104 people have recovered from the Omicron COVID variant.

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