Rs. 5 billion released to EC for elections

BY A STAFF REPORTER,Kathmandu, Nov. 25: The Ministry of Finance has allocated nearly Rs. 5 billion to the Election Commission for the upcoming House of Representatives election, scheduled for March 5, 2026. 

According to the Election Commission spokesperson, Narayan Prasad Bhattarai, the Ministry has provided the Commission with Rs. 4.96 billion. “We had requested Rs. 7 billion to conduct the election. We have currently received a budget of Rs. 4.96 billion. If further funds are required, we have been told that we can request additional support,” he said. “If the budget allocated for conducting the election is not fully used, it has been returned in the past, and it will be the same this time if there are any surplus funds.”

The Election Commission is expected to complete the voter list verification process within a week. Employees of the Election Commission in all 77 districts have been working to verify the voter list based on national identification cards. The total number of registered voters has reached 19,005,324, with 837,094 new voters added to the list.

Spokesperson Bhattarai stated that the verification of duplicate voters and those under 18 years old will also be completed within a week. 

“Election office staff across all districts are actively working on voter list verification. Some districts have already reported that the verification process is complete. We expect to finalize the voter list within a week. Any unverified names or those who are under 18 will be corrected or removed during this process,” he added.

Spokesperson Bhattarai said that between December 7 and 13, the public will be invited to file complaints and requests for corrections regarding the voter list. “It could be due to a person’s death, or they may have moved from one district to another. If there are any mistakes in a person’s name, surname, or address, those will be corrected,” he said. “However, new voter registrations will not be accepted. Only corrections to existing names registered in the voter list will be made, and duplicates will be removed.”

Once all the verification and complaints processes are completed, the final voter list will be published by December 30. According to Bhattarai, the final number of voters will be confirmed after this process is completed.

132 parties registered for election

As of now, 132 political parties have been registered to participate in the upcoming House of Representatives election on March 5, 2026. Following the announcement of the election date, 13 new parties have registered.

Parties are required to register for the election purpose as well. As of Monday, 61 parties have registered for election purposes, Bhattarai informed. The deadline for registration for election purposes is November 26. 

For the National Assembly elections scheduled for January 25, 13 parties have also registered. Registration is required for parties to participate in this election as well.