Citing the alarming surge in Covid-19 cases and Omicron scare, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on January 8 banned public rallies, roadshows and corner meetings till January 15 in the five states as it announced the schedule for the Assembly elections.
Issuing stringent safety guidelines, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said the ban on rallies will be reviewed on January 15.
What do the guidelines issued by ECI say?
- The ECI banned physical rallies, roadshows, padayatra, cycle-bike-vehicle rallies and processions by parties or probable candidates till January 15.
- Parties and candidates have been advised to conduct their campaigns on virtual and digital modes as much as possible.
- Only five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, would be allowed for door-to-door campaigning.
- Physical rallies during the campaign period, as and when permitted after the decision of the Commission will be conducted subject to adherence to extant Covid-19 guidelines.
- There is also a decrease in the number of star campaigners for parties -- for national and state parties, it has been fixed 30 in place of 40 while it is 15 in place of 20 for unrecognised parties.
- Rallies and meetings will be allowed only in earmarked places and with prior permissions of district administration. Each party/candidate should give an undertaking in that it shall abide by all the extant instructions/guidelines in this regard.
- If a candidate or political party violates any of the above guidelines, no further permission shall be given to the concerned candidate/party for rallies, meetings etc.
- The convoy of vehicles shall be broken after every five vehicles and the interval between two sets of convoys of vehicles should be half an hour instead of a gap of 100 metres. During the permitted campaign period, convoy of vehicles will be allowed only for movement of vehicles from one point to another point for campaigning.
- The poll panel banned victory celebrations and only two persons will be allowed to accompany a candidate to collect the winning certificate.
Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa will be held between February 10 and March 7 in seven phases with the counting of votes on March 10. The elections have huge political significance with BJP ruling four of these five states, while it is making a big push to capture Congress-ruled Punjab, where the Aam Aadmi Party is also emerging as an important player.
(With DHNS/PTI inputs)
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