JOIN USTop EC officials test positive for Covid-19
The Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar were infected with the coronavirus as the raging second wave of the pandemic did not spare the Nirvachan Sadan in New Delhi amid the assembly polls in the five states.
Chandra already completed his isolation period of 14 days. He and Kumar are now holding virtual meetings with the Election Commission’s officials and representatives of the political parties through video-conferences, a spokesperson of the EC stated, adding that the poll-panel was working without any interruption.
The Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioner were infected by the Covid-19 virus amid the assembly polls in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Assam and West Bengal. While polling for the Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Assam was completed by April 6, it is yet to be completed in West Bengal, where remaining 112 of the 292 constituencies would go to polls in the last three phases. The voting in two constituencies were adjourned after one candidate in each died of Covid-19.
Chandra, who has been an Election Commissioner since February 2019, took over as the Chief Election Commissioner on April 13 last – a day after his predecessor Sunil Arora completed his term at the helm of the poll-panel.
The three-member EC now has a vacancy, which would be filled up when the government would appoint another Election Commissioner.
While announcing the schedule of assembly elections in the four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry on February 26, the EC stated that it would arrange for vaccination of all the poll officials. The EC arranged a special vaccination camp at its headquarters in New Delhi on March 9, when Arora, Chandra and Kumar had taken the jab.