Election means of exercising and establishing people's sovereign right: CEC Thapaliya

Kathmandu, Aug 16: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya has described the election as the means of exercising the citizen's sovereign rights and political rights granted by the Constitution.     

He said the election is the indispensable part of the democracy through which the citizens will choose their representatives through a ballot.     

In his address to a programme entitled 'orientation on election reporting' organised by the National News Agency (RSS) at its central office today in view of the upcoming elections of the members in the House of Representatives and Province Assembly announced for November 20 in a single phase, CEC Thapaliya said, "election grants people the right to be a voter, to cast the ballot, to choose their representatives, to be part of in the election race and to get elected as well."     

He was of the opinion of taking the election as the beginning of the next phase for the implementation of the Constitution and federalism.     

The Chief Election Commissioner sought a credible, vibrant and meaningful role of media to ensure that the voting would take place in an impartial, fearless and transparent way, expecting more contribution from the RSS to make the election a grand success.     

According to him, voter fraud is a very serious issue in democracy and it must be prevented, seeking the role of RSS to avoid its possibility in each democratic election. He wished that the RSS remaining as the ' information bank' could paint a real picture of each incident in the nations and of the given time lively.     

Terming the RSS as an institution with a living history, he said, "The public still believes that the RSS services are credible and authentic. The mass feeling that the RSS is the synonym to credible services is still alive." The organisation has been a long witness to the issues of democracy, human rights, development endeavours and elections in the nation and archiving such historic phenomena.     

He took time to urge the RSS management to expand its access to the entire 165 electoral constituencies for the coverage of election-related issues.     

He urged the RSS to explore probable difficulties and discomforts that voters are likely to face to access the polling centres and booths so that it would correct them on time. Hinting at the possibility of the misuse of media during the election, he urged media personnel to avoid election-related mis/disinformation, and hate speech and contribute to discouraging and preventing them.     

He urged journalists not to be judgmental and not to assume the circumstances while reporting the incident.     

On the occasion, RSS executive chair Dharmendra Jha said the election is the process of institutionalizing democracy, human rights and people's rights and it is a continuous process. "How much we could be able to systematize the flow of information and make them widely accessible to the people, the more we could be able to make the election a success and contribute to the institutionalization of democracy."     

He pledged to internalize the EC advice for reporting and disseminating election-related news in a balanced way. He also assured that RSS would reach all electoral constituencies to cover the election news.     

He announced that the RSS would highly cooperate with the EC if it came up with media training and orientation targeting the election and urged the EC to cooperate with the RSS for enhancing the technical competency of the RSS people.     

Likewise, RSS general manager Siddharaj Rai said the orientation aimed to find ways for providing election-related news from the RSS in a more effective way and further strengthen its presence.     

Giving his presentation on the occasion, the Chair of the Federation of Nepali Journalists, Bipul Pokhrel, described the election as the lifeline of democracy and urged media personnel to be sure that they could deliver fact-based credible news each time and in the election, too. Touching on various issues concerning media during the election, he said voter's issues, political parties, candidacies, party's election manifesto, the Election Commission's business, and election atmosphere are among the prime media agenda during the election.     

RSS deputy general managers Raju Shakya and Shyam Prasad Rimal, chief editor Yekraj Pathak, and senior editor Surya Chandra Basnet gave their presentation on the election-related issues. (RSS)