Assembly Elections 2022: EC asks states to step up vaccination drive

Ground Report | New Delhi: Assembly Elections 2022; The Election Commission of India has written to the chief secretaries of five states linked to the polls, asking them to "speed up" the pace of Covid-19 vaccination. The survey panel also expressed concern about the low percentage of coverage of the first dose in Manipur.

This comes after the Commission, at a press conference in Lucknow last week, stressed the need to speed up vaccination in ballot-linked states, EC officials said. At the press meeting, Chief Elections Commissioner Sushil Chandra said that EC had asked states to take steps to increase vaccination coverage.

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The commission has said that voting personnel to be deployed to these states must be fully vaccinated and those eligible for the second dose of the vaccines should receive the jabs as a matter of priority, the sources said, citing the letter.

While the term of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh ends in May, the terms of the Legislature of Goa, Manipur, and Punjab end on different dates in March.

The EC is likely to announce the election dates for the five states in the first half of this month.

The personnel that will be deployed in electoral functions in the five states linked to the polls will be included in the category of front-line workers and will be entitled to the "precautionary dose" of COVID-19 vaccines, the Ministry had said a few days ago Union Health. behind.

In a letter to the Union states and territories, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that personnel who will be deployed to electoral functions in the states linked to the polls will be included in the category of front-line workers. (Assembly Elections 2022)

"As a matter of abundant precaution, for healthcare workers and frontline workers who have received two doses, another dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be provided beginning January 10, 2022.

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"The prioritization and sequencing of this precautionary dose would be based on the completion of nine months, that is, 39 weeks from the date of administration of the second dose," he had said in the letter.

He had observed that the percentage of those who had received the first dose of the vaccines was even lower in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Manipur, while it was close to 100% in Uttarakhand and Goa.

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