Congress has decided to postpone all its election rallies scheduled to be held in Uttar Pradesh in the next 15 days, party spokesperson Pawan Khera said on Wednesday, reported NDTV.

“The decision to postpone it for other [poll-bound] states will be taken based on reports from party in- charges,” Khera said. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal also said that the party in-charges in the poll-bound states will take the decision based on the Covid-19 situation, according to ANI.

Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur are scheduled to go to polls in February-March.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath too has cancelled a government function in Gautam Buddha Nagar scheduled for Thursday as the district registered a high increase in coronavirus cases, reported NDTV.

India has witnessed an alarming rise in coronavirus cases in the last few days.

On Wednesday, India recorded 58,097 Covid-19 cases – a 55.42% jump from Tuesday’s count of 37,379 cases. The country has reported 3,50,18,358 cases since the pandemic began in 2020.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, political parties and the Election Commission of India have been criticised for holding elections and rallies.

In December, the Allahabad High Court had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Election Commission to postpone the upcoming Assembly polls and ban political rallies in view of concerns about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus disease.

Last year, Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry were held amid the devastating second wave of the coronavirus.

While the country battled with a record surge in Covid-19 cases for days and hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen, politicians were holding election rallies attended by thousands with little evidence of masks or physical distancing.

Nowhere was this more evident than West Bengal, where Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held gigantic rallies, when the Election Commission finally banned all roadshows and limited gatherings to 500 people amid the worsening situation.