MYAGDI, Oct 26: Leaders of various political parties are found delivering speeches in public gatherings and assuring people during door-to-door visits that they won't be making unnecessary expenses in the elections by breaching the election laws. However, such leaders are found spending millions of rupees in the name of poll campaigns in order to lure more voters.
With not much time left for the provincial and parliamentary elections, candidates have started organizing costly promotional programs and paying for lavish dinner, lunch, transportation and various other expenses of hundreds of people involved in their campaign.
In the recently held local elections too, parties were found attempting to attract voters by spending money. While some candidates have started making donations to impress the locals, few are even using the donations collected for social causes for their personal use. This has ultimately increased the poll expenditure.
Candidates likely to exceed poll expense ceiling set by EC
The recently announced alliance between CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) is also likely to contribute to the increase in election expenses as both parties will be organizing campaigns for the joint candidates.
According to UML's secretariat member Raj Kumar Thapa, who is entrusted with the responsibility of finance coordinator for the upcoming provincial and parliamentary elections, the alliance will make sure that the expenses will be under the limitation set by the EC.
“We are completely against lavish campaigns aimed at attracting voters,” he said.
Similarly, NC's finance chief of Myagdi district Amritman Sherchan assured that their party has followed the codes and ethics of the EC.
Though leaders promise to conduct everything within the budget fixed by the EC, they fail to manage everything under this limitation. Mostly, leaders are found spending more money for food and accommodation of cadres and campaigners.
Despite all the accusations, parties have been denying of making expenses against the election laws. Small parties lament that they are compelled to increase the expenses due to the expenses made by big parties. According to them, that develops a sense of competition.
Chief Election Officer of Myagdi, Kedarnath Poudel, informed that if any evidence is found against any party or candidate making expenditure beyond the limit, stern action will be taken against them. He also warned that the nomination of particular candidates will be canceled and they might also have to pay hefty compensation if they are found violating the laws.
“We have urged parties to follow the rules and regulations and we hope they will follow them,” Poudel said. He further informed that the District Election Office (DEO) will be conducting regular inspection on election activities.
There are altogether 72 polling stations and 102 polling booths in Myagdi.
