Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney wrote a letter to the State Election Commission (SEC) urging it to revoke its order of postponing the elections and adhere to the schedule announced earlier.
The Chief Secretary’s letter comes in the wake of the SEC decision to postpone the elections in view of the Covid-19 scare.
Ms. Sawhney, in the letter, said the situation related to Covid-19 was under control in the State and it would continue to be under control for another three to four weeks. Further, considering that there is no local transmission, leave alone community transmission, there may be no threat of outbreak in the next three to four weeks. However, looking at the trend in other countries, in spite of all efforts, nothing can be predicted of the situation after four weeks. Thus, any postponement of elections would make the conduct of elections very uncertain depriving the State of the 3rd tier of the government which is critical at this juncture, she said.
Referring to Centre’s notification, she said it was made more for enabling the State governments to access funds from SDRF for meeting expenditures for containment of Covid-19 rather than for declaring the coronavirus outbreak a notified disaster.
The State Election Commission on Sunday issued a notification halting the process of local body elections by six weeks in the view of the coronavirus threat.
State Election Commissioner N. Ramesh Kumar had said that after six weeks or after the threat of coronavirus recedes, the election process would continue with changes wherever necessary. For the panchayat elections, a fresh notification would be issued once normalcy is restored. He had also said the Centre had issued an advisory to State governments to control large gatherings.
The Chief Secretary said the government would like to assure that it has been taking and would continue to take all necessary steps fro containment of Covid-19. Concerns with regard to the election coming in the way of containing Covid-19 can be addressed by issuing suitable advisories with regard to election campaigning by candidates and congregation at the polling stations.
Prior consultation
Stating that public health was the responsibility of the State government and therefore the SEC could have held prior consultation with the State. “This would have helped us to appraise the correct status of Covid-19 before coming to a conclusion regarding postponement of the elections,” she said.
The Chief Secretary also enclosed a copy of the report by the Special Chief Secretary (Medical and Health) on Covid-19.
