COURTESY HT OCT 22

Physical rallies only if virtual not feasible: HC

Bhopal/Gwalior : Voicing displeasure over the conduct of political parties and candidates at a time the Covid-19 pandemic is raging, the Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court has directed the administrators of nine districts in its jurisdiction to grant permissions for physical public rallies only if virtual meetings are not possible ahead of next month’s assembly bypolls.

The court also ordered that FIRs be lodged against Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar and state Congress president Kamal Nath for alleged breach of Covid-19 protocols.

District magistrates should not permit political parties and candidates from holding physical meetings, irrespective of the size of the crowd, if they can campaign digitally in Gwalior, Guna, Morena, Bhind, Ashok Nagar, Datia, Shivpuri, Sheopur and Vidisha, the bench ruled.

“...the right of candidates to campaign has to yield to the right to health and life of the electorate,” said the court in its interim order. Political parties are doing everything they can to draw the common man out of the security of his/her home “to achieve their ulterior motive of gaining popularity to obtain votes, and leaving gullible” people to go home and “transmit the disease to family members”, read the order.