Kerala High Court Seeks Response On Plea Seeking Lockdown On Day Of Assembly Results

On Friday, a vacation bench of the Kerala High Court directed the state government to file a statement on a petition calling for the declaration of a lockdown in the State on May 2, 2021, which is the counting day of the Assembly elections in Kerala, given the surge in the daily numbers of those affected by COVID-19 in the state.

Justices PB Suresh Kumar and K Babu took up the petition yesterday, suo motu impleading the Election Commission. The case was thereafter adjourned for the statements of the government and the Election Commission till April 23.

The petition filed by Advocate Vinod Mathew Wilson of LAW AID, through Advocate R Sivadasan of Law Link Kollam avers that the election campaigning in the run-up to the Kerala Assembly Election and the 'high-voltage rallies by national and local parties have triggered another wave of Covid-19 in Kerala'. Because of this, the state, which went to the polls on April 6, is seeing the number of infections rising steadily, the petition states.

Without a lockdown or measures to ensure that safety precautions are taken, "ardent workers, supporters and sympathizers of all political parties, national, regional, local etc. will be thronging around counting centers and almost all the streets throughout Kerala with uncontrollable convergence", the petition expresses.

Such a situation would effectively bring the entire health machinery to a standstill, the petitioner states. Therefore, a lockdown must be imposed on the day of counting, it is prayed.

The petitioner makes the case that the number of Covid cases is around 10,000 after the election but was only around 2,000 cases before the election notification.

It is additionally highlighted that the Test Positivity Rate (TPR), "which was a mere 2 per cent on March 1 and which continued to remain at below 4 per cent up till the middle of March, rose to 6.4 per cent on April 1. It went up to 12.5 per cent on April 12, and further to 14.80 per cent on April 16."

The petitioner states that the rate of infection among health workers is also on the rise. Even if all precautionary measures are scrupulously implemented, they will not serve any practical purpose, the plea asserts.

The case is expected to be taken up next on April 23, 2021.