Nepali Congress urges EC to curb breach of election code

Kathmandu, March 1: The Nepali Congress (NC) has drawn the attention of the Election Commission (EC) towards the incidents of some political parties allegedly violating the Election Code of Conduct-2082BS. 

A delegation led by NC's Spokesperson and Central Publicity Committee Coordinator Devaraj Chalise called on Officiating Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari on Sunday and raised the concerns over alleged breaches of the election code of conduct. The team called EC for the strict enforcement of election code. 

The party accused that some political parties were still overtly misusing the election symbols during publicity campaign. Event children were involved in the campaign to a sheer contradiction to code of conduct, it reminded.

NC claimed that the national flag of Nepal was misused going against the directives issued by the EC while misinformation and propaganda were spread through social media at the vested interest of certain political parties. 

In the memorandum submitted to the EC, NC asserted that it believes in fair competition and reaffirmed its commitment towards fulfilling the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Nepali citizens as well as to safeguarding and promoting democracy, the Constitution and human rights.

However, the NC mentioned that it has taken into account the reports doing the rounds on media outlets that some political parties were running election campaign violating the election code of conduct instead of fairly competing for the March 5 election to the House of Representatives. 

In response, Officiating CEC Bhandari said that the EC was at work to ensure minimal violation of election code. Bhandari also informed the delegation that the EC had already booked many violators and highlighted the Commission's zero-tolerance policy towards illegal cash transaction.

As for the concern relating to misuse of national flag and election symbols, he said that the Commission was seriously monitoring the situation and has already drawn the attention of the concerned stakeholders to these matters. (RSS)