The State government on Thursday told the Madras High Court that there will be a complete lockdown in the State on Sunday when the votes polled in the Assembly constituency will be counted. It, however, said there wouldn’t be any necessity to impose a similar lockdown on Saturday too, since it was a public holiday on account of Labour Day and not much of a crowd could be expected on the roads and in public places.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy accepted the submission made by Advocate General Vijay Narayan and said the court had only suggested that a complete lockdown could be imposed on both days to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and if the government, after due deliberations, had decided not to impose a lockdown on Saturday, then the court would have nothing more to add.
The submissions were made during the hearing of a suo motu public interest litigation petition taken up by the court to monitor the COVID-19 situation in the State. Since the court did not want the day of counting of votes to turn into a super spreader event, the A-G informed the court of the Election Commission of India having laid down an elaborate protocol for the day.
