Officials begin preparations for election

By Our Correspondent

Myagdi/Kavrepalanchowk, Nov. 7: Election materials required for the House of Representatives (HoR) and Provincial Assembly elections slated for November 20 have started arriving in the districts.

According to officials of Myagdi and Kavrepalanchowk districts, they have received necessary materials for the elections. The process of packing the arrived materials as necessary and distributing them to different polling stations across the districts has also started.

Myagdi’s Election Officer Bhim Prasad Ghimire informed that a total of 58 different kinds of materials had arrived from the Election Commission. The materials include ballot boxes and papers, coarse bags, ‘Swastik’ stamps and ink, among others. 

A total of 95,000 ballot papers for HoR election and 45,000 and 42,000 papers for Provincial Assembly election from Constituency 1 and 2 respectively have arrived in the district.

There is one constituency for HoR and two for provincial assembly in the district.“We have received the equipment required for the elections. 

The process of voter education is underway. We plan to distribute the materials to the respective places within time,” said Ghimire.

A total of 461 volunteers, mostly health personnel, have been deployed across the district for voter education programme from Sunday to reduce the number of invalid votes.

Assistant Election Officer of the district Tej Prasad Poudel informed that they have also initiated the process to select 120 election officers, 120 assistant election officers, 593 assistant employees and 120 helpers for the elections.

There are a total of 82 polling stations and 119 polling centres in six local levels of the district. Among the 82 polling stations, 15 are declared highly-sensitive and 58 sensitive.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Tilak Bharati of the district police informed that a total of 732 temporary policemen have been deployed for election security.

Similarly, Kavrepalanchowk Constituency-1 received 169,000 ballot papers for the HoR election and 171,000 for provincial assembly elections. Likewise, 168,000 papers for the proportionate election system.

The number of ballot papers provided to Kavrepalanchowk Constituency-2 is also similar.

“We have received 10 per cent more papers than the number of voters. The materials will be distributed to respective polling stations as per the necessity,” said Shesh Raj Dahal, assistant election officer of Kavre.