Two can­di­dates par­tic­i­pat­ing in the forth­com­ing DS­GMC polls have tested pos­i­tive for Coro­n­avirus and have been quar­an­tined home. The Delhi gov­ern­ment of Arvind Ke­jri­wal has de­clared a week­end cur­few in the Na­tional Cap­i­tal Re­gion of Delhi. A large num­ber of Sikhs and other cit­i­zens of Delhi are run­ning hel­ter-skel­ter for treat­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion. The Delhi High Court re­ly­ing upon the as­sur­ance of the Aam Aadmi Party en­sur­ing full com­pli­ance of all ad­vi­sories by Sikhs dur­ing elec­tion­eer­ing has dis­missed a pe­ti­tion seek­ing a de­lay in the polls.  Young Sikh so­cial ac­tivists are work­ing hard for med­ical re­lief and are also seek­ing post­pone­ment of the polls. Gurmeet Singh of WSN Delhi Desk ex­plains.

AS IT IS THE SIKHS OF DELHI ARE LARGELY UN­IN­TER­ESTED in the DS­GMC Gur­d­wara polls. With the COVID19 fear loom­ing large, in such a sit­u­a­tion if the DS­GMC polls are held on 25 April 2021, the turnout is bound to be far lower than the pre­vi­ous elec­tions. It may fall down from 46 per cent of the reg­is­tered vot­ers in 2017 to prob­a­bly half or even fewer as very few are likely to brave the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion and reach the booths to ex­er­cise their fran­chise.

The hor­ror of the April heat could not dampen the spirit of cam­paign­ing in the DS­GMC elec­tions, but the ris­ing num­bers of COVID19 cases are forc­ing cam­paign­ers to stay in­doors and woo prospec­tive vot­ers by hold­ing house to house meet­ings, tele­call­ing and an ex­ten­sive so­cial me­dia cam­paign. Nev­er­the­less, the vot­ers are afraid that the cam­paign­ers may be car­ry­ing the virus as they move from one home to an­other. WSN is aware that this was wit­nessed when there was a sus­tained house to house cam­paign, some four months back, for reg­is­ter­ing fresh vot­ers in Ra­jouri Gar­den and Paschim Vi­har.

Kuldip Singh Sahni from the Saf­dar­jang En­clave seat has tested COVID19 pos­i­tive and Jag­tar Singh Jagga from the Trans-Ja­muna seat of Khureji Khas is down with Ty­phoid, though un­con­firmed re­ports claim that he too is Corona pos­i­tive. It may how­ever be noted, that nei­ther the lead­er­ship of the 7 par­tic­i­pat­ing groups or in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates have sought post­pone­ment of elec­tions, till the fil­ing of this re­port.

Kuldip Singh Sahni from the Saf­dar­jang En­clave seat has tested COVID19 pos­i­tive and Jag­tar Singh Jagga from the Trans-Ja­muna seat of Khureji Khas is down with Ty­phoid. 

The en­thu­si­asm of the con­test­ing can­di­dates is also fac­ing rough weather as the cap­i­tal city of In­dia wit­nesses a huge COVID19 up­surge.  Ac­tivist lawyer Harpreet Singh Sodhi, who was con­duct­ing a door to door cam­paign for his favourite can­di­dates told this re­porter, “I have stopped cam­paign­ing since the last three days and am now call­ing only on the phone. The sit­u­a­tion is scary.”

En­tre­pre­neur and ac­tivist from Ra­jouri Gar­den Sukhbir Singh ex­pressed his wor­ries about the sit­u­a­tion and de­manded post­pone­ment of the DS­GMC elec­tions. Sikh so­cial me­dia cir­cles are agog with fear and in­ter­ac­tions as to what should be done to get the elec­tions post­poned.  

As the daily ac­tive cases touched 17,000 plus to­day and as the short­age of beds, ven­ti­la­tors and oxy­gen hit the cit­i­zens of Delhi, the Arvind Ke­jri­wal gov­ern­ment has an­nounced a full week­end cur­few till 30 April.

As the daily ac­tive cases touched 17,000 plus to­day and as the short­age of beds, ven­ti­la­tors and oxy­gen hit the cit­i­zens of Delhi, the Arvind Ke­jri­wal gov­ern­ment has an­nounced a full week­end cur­few till 30 April, with­out any word as to how the elec­tions will be held on the sched­uled week­end Sun­day, 25 April 2021. Since the past few days, the cases ex­pected to dou­ble every six days, are now dou­bling in 1-2 days.

Amidst all of this, two con­sci­en­tious Delhi Sikh cit­i­zens and reg­is­tered vot­ers for the DS­GMC polls -Ad­vo­cate Jag­mo­han Singh and so­cial ac­tivist Man­jit Singh Chugh, ap­proached the Delhi High Court through rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the Chief Jus­tice of Delhi High Court, the Chief Min­is­ter and the Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Delhi through rep­re­sen­ta­tions to de­fer the elec­tions of the mem­bers of Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee un­der the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1971, when the corona scare sub­sides.

The pe­ti­tion­ers cited the ris­ing coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions in Delhi, the fact that the norms of COVID19-friendly be­hav­iours are go­ing for a toss dur­ing elec­tion­eer­ing, the his­tor­i­cal fact that elec­tions have been post­poned in the past for var­i­ous rea­sons and the pal­pa­ble fear that just as the Tableeghi Ja­maat was blamed as su­per-spread­ers in the first found of the Corona pan­demic, this time the Sikhs may be blamed like­wise.

They have also at­tached news­pa­per clip­pings re­gard­ing the COVID19 spread and pho­tos show­ing ut­ter dis­re­gard by lead­ers, can­di­dates and cam­paign­ers dur­ing the on­go­ing elec­tion­eer­ing.

Dis­miss­ing the writ pe­ti­tion seek­ing putting on hold the elec­tion process for DS­GMC by the Delhi gov­ern­ment, Jus­tice Ra­jiv Shai End­law and Jus­tice Amit Bansal of the Delhi High Court, said, “The de­ci­sion, to hold or not to hold an elec­tion or al­low or not to al­low a par­tic­u­lar event to take place, are mat­ters of pol­icy and pol­icy mat­ters are best left to the Ex­ec­u­tive Wing of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia which has the where­withal to take all rel­e­vant fac­tors into con­sid­er­a­tion be­fore ar­riv­ing at a de­ci­sion in such re­spect.

Once a de­ci­sion to hold the elec­tion has been taken, the elec­tion process be­gun and not stopped in spite of rise in the num­ber of in­fected per­sons in the city and nor­mal life per­mit­ted to go on in the city save for a few re­stric­tions and once it is shown that guide­lines for en­sur­ing that the hold­ing of elec­tion does not lead to spread of Covid-19 any more than it is al­ready tak­ing place, the Court would not in­ter­fere in such a pol­icy mat­ter. The re­spon­dent GNCTD (Gov­ern­ment of Na­tional Cap­i­tal Ter­ri­tory of Delhi), as well as the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, is al­ready tak­ing all steps to pre­vent the spread of Covid-19, with­out how­ever re­strict­ing day to day life any more than nec­es­sary.”

“The de­ci­sion, to hold or not to hold an elec­tion or al­low or not to al­low a par­tic­u­lar event to take place, are mat­ters of pol­icy and pol­icy mat­ters are best left to the Ex­ec­u­tive Wing of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia……”

Jus­tices Ra­jiv Sa­hai End­law and Jus­tice Amit Bansal, Delhi High Court, in their or­der dis­miss­ing pe­ti­tion seek­ing de­lay of the DS­GMC polls.

The judges also added that there is no ground for fear of a bad name to a par­tic­u­lar com­mu­nity. They said, “the sub­ject elec­tions are not po­lit­i­cal in na­ture but agree that with the pas­sage of time, are no less than a po­lit­i­cal elec­tion. Be­sides the gen­eral re­stric­tions put in place by the Gov­ern­ments and be­ing en­forced, each in­sti­tu­tion is tak­ing its own steps for re­strict­ing the spread of the Covid-19 virus and we are con­fi­dent that not only will GNCTD en­force guide­lines al­ready is­sued to pre­vent spread of virus dur­ing the elec­tion, a body as the DS­GMC also, will take all pos­si­ble steps to en­sure that the con­duct of elec­tions is not a source of spread of the Covid-19 virus.”

Le­gal ex­perts and ob­servers point out that the sit­u­a­tion in Delhi is go­ing from bad to worse but gen­er­ally speak­ing, courts do not in­ter­vene once the poll process starts in any elec­tion.

In such a sce­nario, Sikhs will wade through a dif­fi­cult time with only a very small per­cent­age of vot­ers choos­ing their Gur­d­wara rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cern was well ex­pressed by Amardeep Singh -a young so­cial ac­tivist from Tilak Na­gar, who while speak­ing to WSN said, “The Aam Aadmi Party gov­ern­ment and the Di­rec­torate Gur­d­wara Elec­tions owe it to the Sikhs of Delhi not to con­duct a sham elec­tion with an ex­pect­edly poor turnout.”  

“Sav­ing the lives of peo­ple, in­clud­ing young Sikhs who are dy­ing of the new COVID19 mu­tant should be the top­most pri­or­ity. Every­thing else can wait.”