INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
KATHMANDU, APRIL 25The Election Commission has
printed 80 per cent of ballot papers and has already dispatched election materials to all 77 districts
In a press release issued today, the EC stated that it would start dispatching ballot papers to destinations across the country from
EC ready with ballot papers for 53 districts
Half the ballot papers for upcoming polls printed
The Election Commission has printed 15,483,000 ballot papers meant for 63 of the 77 districts that go to polls on May 13
The Election Commission has to print 19,400,000 ballot papers.
Yesterday, the EC revealed it started printing ballot papers
before the election programme was announced, as it would have been difficult to print ballot papers otherwise.The EC said its officials
needed 35 to 40 days to print ballot papers, verify them, and pack them
The EC needs seven days just to transport ballot papers across the country.As of today, 68 organisations have received permission to observe
They plan to deploy 20,000 observers during the local polls, according to a press release issued by the poll panel.Spokesperson for the EC
Shaligram Sharma Paudel said the poll panel kept two days for filing nomination papers because in the last local polls, EC officials felt
that one day was not enough to complete the huge task of data entry and verification of details.He said in the last election, almost 150,000
candidates had filed their nomination papers across the country, but this time only 11,000 candidates filed their nomination papers on the
first day.The poll panel urged all not to violate the poll code or else they would be punished.A version of this article appears in the
print on April 26, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
This article first appeared/also appeared in https://thehimalayantimes.com