Today's polls can be super spreaders: Telangana High Court

The Telangana high court on Thursday reprimanded the state government for granting sanction to the state election commission to hold local body elections as they could turn super spreaders of the pandemic. It issued a notice to the SEC to explain steps taken to ensure social distancing and other Covid-19 norms. Elections to two corporations and 5 municipalities are scheduled on Friday.

“Having regard to the recent experience of rampant of spread of the from the spread of the infection in other poll bound states, there is a genuine apprehension that the elections going to be conducted on April 30 will turn out to be super spreaders with cases exploding within a week or ten days after the elections,” the court said.

“In the absence of any information about the course of action charted out either by the state or the state election commission to manage and control the crowds, it is deemed appropriate to issue notice to the state election commission as well. The commission shall file an affidavit by tomorrow furnishing inter alia the plan of action for managing crowding of voters at polling booths at the premises where counting shall take place and on the declaration of the results.”


A division bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and B Vijaysen Reddy also sought to know about the state government’s plan regarding locking down to break the transmission chain. The state will have to report on this by Friday, when the night curfew in the state comes to an end.