Delhi: PIL in high court seeks postponement of Assembly polls in 5 states amid rise in Omicron cases

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in Delhi High Court seeking postponement of the upcoming Assembly elections in five states in view of the rising cases of Omicron, the spiralling variant of Covid-19 virus.

The PIL, filed by Congress leader Jagdish Sharma, was listed before a Division bench presided over by Chief Justices D.N. Patel and Jyoti Singh on Thursday. However, the matter could not be heard as the bench did not assemble.

Filed through Adv Rudra Vikram Singh and Adv Manish Kumar, the plea also sought the Centre and Delhi government to submit their plans to contain the pandemic during the third wave of the pandemic, including the preparedness for Oxygen and other essential items in this regard.

Seeking direction from the Election Commission to postpone the polls for some months, the plea also prayed for a mandatory quarantine of people returning from poll-bound States.

Recently, the EC had extended the ban on public rallies and roadshows in the five poll-bound states-- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur -- by a week, from January 15 to January 22.

The campaigning had been restricted after the election notification on January 8 when the EC banned rallies, public meetings, and road shows -- first till January 15 and then till January 31.