Blog: What’s The Rush, Election Commission?

Did the Well being Ministry pull the wool over the eyes of the Election Fee final Thursday (January 6) when the commissioners went for a briefing? Did they cleverly current information that Covid infections within the states about to vote are as little as 0.5%, that there’s nothing to fret about and that the commissioners may go forward with the elections as is?

The reply might be sure.

Sure, not as a result of what the Well being Ministry stated was unfaithful, however that it was put collectively to current an image of Covid normalcy within the election states.

The Well being Ministry, in accordance with all stories, acknowledged that in these 5 states the general positivity was a mere 0.5% for information on January 5 (which truly means circumstances reported on January 4).

First, the information of Jan 5 (which mirrored Jan 4) was significantly decrease than what was obtainable on the morning of the assembly. In UP, Goa and Manipur, the numbers had doubled and in Punjab and Uttarakhand, they have been 80% and 60% larger. There was a transparent pattern from January 1 of circumstances rising quickly and the ministry had sufficient reference factors from Mumbai, Delhi and Karnataka to have the ability to undertaking what was coming.

Second, the Election Fee had entry to the each day information, as all of us do, which, by the morning of Saturday (Jan 8) confirmed that UP had seen a rise of 437% from Jan 5 and all different states have been near a 300% enhance. In truth, by Saturday UP was reporting that the positivity fee was at 3.46% (4) in comparison with 0.24% introduced to the Election Fee.

Third, why was the Election Fee relying on the numbers given by the Well being Ministry? The Well being Ministry had indicated it had no positivity charges for Goa, whereas Goan newspapers have been reporting positivity charges of 17-24% throughout this era. Provided that the EC has state election officers, why wasn’t it counting on stories from them on what was the state of affairs on the bottom?

Punjab on Jan 6 (information obtainable on Jan 7) had a positivity fee of 11.75%. That info wasn’t a secret, so why did not the Well being Ministry ship the Election Fee an replace?

In truth, as a substitute of sending an replace and warning the Election Fee of an impending disaster in all of the election states, the Well being Ministry despatched out a sturdy defence, stating that media stories about it saying there was no trigger for alarm have been “extremely ill-informed” and have been meant to “begin a misinformation marketing campaign”. It added that its presentation was on the “international and home standing of the unfold of Covid”. It didn’t, in fact, hassle to share the presentation for the bigger public to confirm what it had stated. That isn’t shocking – they seldom share info on points that might result in any type of debate.

The true query that arises is on condition that circumstances have been (and are) rising exponentially, why was the EC in such a rush to have the polls? Virtually all information obtainable appears to recommend that the third wave is at present within the rising section and information from different international locations would point out that there’s a 4-6 week rise and the same decline. So proper now, all these states are within the progress interval and may peak a while between early and mid-February, besides UP, which can be a few weeks later.

Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur have until March 15 to type new assemblies, Enterprise Normal famous in an editorial at this time, so why push them into elections in February when Covid is peaking, particularly as they’ve to attend for the consequence till March 10?

And Uttar Pradesh does not want the brand new meeting to be referred to as till Could 14. So why could not that election be held in April?

So why did the Election Fee press the accelerator and go together with dates much like the earlier elections (2017)? Is it simply bureaucratic inertia? That is one thing solely the Election Fee can reply.

The Well being Ministry appears to be severely involved concerning the third wave and that the demand for hospitalisation may rise significantly, and at this time authorised the deployment of resident docs and nursing college students as help through the wave.

One needs it had reacted like this final week – then voting in every state may have began 30 days later and the deadline for formation of the subsequent meeting would nonetheless have been met. Thirty days within the time of a Covid wave is sort of a breather that the states may have afforded. Sadly, many abnormal individuals, celebration employees, polling officers, safety personnel and voters might be pressured collectively and unnecessarily face the extra threat of Covid over the subsequent two months.

(Ishwari Bajpai is Senior Advisor at NDTV.)

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