The contest will be chiefly fought between moderately centrist Nepal Congress-led alliance and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist, UML)-led alliance
AMN / KATHMANDU
Voting for parliamentary and provincial assembly elections will be held in Nepal tomorrow in a single phase.
More than 17.9 million people are eligible to vote in seven provinces across the Himalayan nation. Out of a total of 275 members of the federal Parliament, 165 will be elected through direct voting, while the remaining 110 will be elected through a proportionate method. Similarly, out of a total of 550 members of the Provincial Assembly, 330 will be elected directly and 220 will be elected through a proportionate method.
Nepal’s Election Commission has announced a slew of measures to ensure the elections are conducted without any incident. These include enforcing air patrolling and setting up three-tier security at polling stations.
The poll panel has asked the ministry to inform it its decision to cancel those projects by 11:00am tomorrow via email.The EC also issued show cause notice to the ministry seeking clarification as to what policy decisions it had made after September 28 and whether or not the ministry’s secretary-level decision to endorse development projects that could run for more than a year violated the election code of conduct. The EC said that the ministry secretaries were bound to know about the election code of conduct.The ministry will have to send a representative to the EC within 24 hours with the ministry’s response to the EC’s show cause notice.
“The secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development decided to endorse development projects that could be carried out for more than a year at a time when the silence period for the parliamentary and provincial elections had already started. Since the decision was aimed at benefitting a particular party’s candidate violating sections 4, 5, and 7 of the election code of conduct, why should the EC not take action against you in accordance with Section 23 (3) and 44 of the Election Commission Act?” the EC said in its show cause letter.As per Section 23 (3) of the poll code of conduct, the EC can impose a fine not exceeding Rs 100,000 to individuals and institutions that violate EC orders. As per Section 44, the EC can take action against any government employee for defying EC directives.The EC has separately issued a show cause notice to the Secretary of Urban Development Ministry Ramesh Prasad Singh for allegedly touring Dang district in an attempt to influence voters there. Urban Development Minister Metmani Chaudhary hails from Dang district.
Chief Election Commissioners from India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Maldives are taking part in the election process as the international observers.