BENGALURU: Observing that elections in India are treated as festive celebrations, the Karnataka High Court on Friday declined to stop the rallies and road shows by political parties. This includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi's road shows scheduled to be held on May 6 and 7 in Bengaluru ahead of the May 10 Karnataka Legislative Assembly polls.
"During the election process from the first general election held to parliament in 1952, there are records to show that rallies of the kind were held... The political rallies have some elements of dissemination of knowledge and information about the election process to the public at large. The apex court in Lilly Thomas vs Union of India observed that there is a need for dissemination of knowledge to the public at large since democracy requires the exercise of knowledge choice by the electorate and this purpose is served by these rallies the kind", the court added.
A vacation division bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice Vijaykumar A Patil passed the order while closing the public interest litigation filed by city-based advocate NP Amrutesh seeking the court's intervention to ban road shows on the ground that the road shows, including the two road shows organised by BJP in Bengaluru, will disrupt the normal life of the citizens across the state.
Before passing the order after holding the special sitting, the court heard the City Police Commissioner, District Election Officer, additional advocate general, and Election Commission of India to take stock of the preparedness to avoid inconvenience to the general public and also prevent any untoward incidents during the roadshow.
After hearing them, the court noted that, if the political rally is undertaken tomorrow and the day after, the authorities have told the court all precautionary measures would be taken keeping in view of the movement of ambulances, school-college buses, commutation of students, the general public, movement of essential supplying vehicles and to prevent possible damage to private and public property during the rally. Their submission that the level of inconvenience to the public would be diminished immensely, the court added.
The District Election Officer submitted that if at all the permission is to be granted, that would be 26 km on longest on May 6 between 9 am to 1.30 pm and 6 km on May 7 between 9 am and 11.30 am in the city.
When the court queried keeping in view of the NEET examination on Sunday, the commissioner of police submitted that there would be no law and order problem there being sufficient police force, the screening of the gatherers, all precautions would be taken, traffic diversions would be affected and public at large would be informed in advance through print, electronic and social media. Steps have been taken to ensure the free movement of ambulances or movement of such other vehicles, the commissioner told the court.
Additional Advocate General submitted that in the matters like this, the court should be slow to interfere since it pertains to the humane wisdom of the executives whose experience over the years. He also echoes the view of ECI that since the announcement of the election on March 29, in all 2,517 rallies of various sizes have been held throughout the state, of which 371 were in Bengaluru itself, without any untoward incident having been reported.