Voters’ education effective in Humla

By Our Correspondent

Humla, Nov. 9:  A door-to-door voters’ education campaign in Humla has become effective after volunteers assigned by the election office expedited the programme.

Reaching every household, the volunteers have been educating the voters about the voting methods as well as about the importance of exercising voting rights.

Musikala Rokaya, a local, said volunteers who reached their settlement taught them the proper method of casting votes.

Informing that the such campaign was nowhere to be seen in her village during the recently held local level election, Rokaya said she had no idea what happened with her vote that time. But since she has learned a proper way to cast vote this time, she is confident that her vote will not turn invalid.

The election office has been conducting door-to-door education programmes in municipalities and rural municipalities for the upcoming elections to the House of Representatives (HoR) and Provincial Assemblies due on November 20.

Saraswoti Rawat, a volunteer deployed in Simkot Rural Municipality-5, said they had been working to increase the participation of as many citizens as possible and reduce the number of invalid votes.

“We have been going door to door to cover every house in the rural municipality.”

Eight volunteers were deployed to the municipality and the programme was conducted in 29 settlements, informed the municipality.

Acting Chief of District Election Office Shyam Bahadur Rana said the voters’ education programme was conducted in 43 out of 44 wards of seven rural villages of the district to educate voters.

Rana said the mock elections were held at different places to teach the voters about voting process. “As we have seen a huge number of invalid votes in Humla, 19 per cent to be precise, we don’t want that to repeat, which is why the campaign was launched.”