KATHMANDU, Sept 11: The Election Commission (EC) has requested the government to make available 250,000 employees to successfully hold the elections to the House of Representatives and the provincial assemblies scheduled for November 20.
Secretary of the Election Commission, Gokarnamani Dawadi said that the commission has requested 246,000 employees from the government for election purposes this time. This number is about 50,000 more than those used in the local elections held last May. Around 200,000 employees were deployed in the local-level elections.
Karnali state lacks over 600 employees
Arjun Pokharel, secretary of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, said that as requested by the Election Commission, the work of sending staff to the EC is underway. There is a provision in the law that employees who have been adjusted at the federal, provincial and local levels can be mobilized if the EC deems it necessary. Even teachers can be used as employees by the EC if the number cannot be reached by other government staffers. The commission is going to train all the employees who will be deployed in the election.
According to Dawadi, polling stations and polling centers will be added throughout the country this time. Therefore, the number of employees and security personnel required for the elections will also increase. In the last local elections, 7 to 9 employees were assigned to a polling station. But this time there will be 11 to 13 employees at one polling station.
After the local-level elections held last May, the EC estimates that this time around 500,000 voters will be added. However, the final list of voters will be published on September 16. There were 17,733,723 voters in the local elections.
