Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Neel Kantha Uprety assured on Friday that they will consider with due seriousness whether the EC could provide a window period for voters to register for the electoral rolls.
Uprety agreed to respond positively to the request made by HLPC on condition the move would not affect the election calendar unveiled on Thursday or eventually the election scheduled for November 19. [break]
“We have been receiving similar requests from individual parties as well. But we are not in a position to provide a long time for registration,” CEC Uprety told Republica. “We are mulling if we can provide a small window period for the voter registration.”
Uprety, however, said that the EC has not taken any decision yet. “We must hold elections on the scheduled date of November 19. The EC is thinking with due seriousness if it can respond to the request of various political parties to provide some additional time for voter registration,” he added.
The EC has registered a total of 12.3 million voters with photo and biometrics as of July 16. This is 5.5 million fewer than the total number of voters registered for the Constituent Assembly (CA) election held in April, 2008.
Various Madhes-based parties have been demanding an additional one-month time, expressing strong dissatisfaction with the low turnout for voter registration. The parties have maintained that many eligible voters are yet to register their names for the electoral rolls due to lack of adequate time.
Sources said the EC will take an official decision in this connection only after the government makes a formal request for the same. “The EC needs the government´s support and involvement in taking any decision in this regard. But we may not be able to give more than one or two weeks´ time, considering the election program we have already unveiled,” said a source at the EC.
As per the decision of the HLPC, HLPC coordinator Pushpa Kamal Dahal had reached the EC office on Kantipath to hold talks with CEC Uprety Friday afternoon.
Talking to media persons after the meeting, Dahal expressed confidence that the EC would find ways to register the eligible voters. “We discussed if we can provide some time to include those yet to register in the electoral rolls,” he said.
Dahal also said the HLPC had taken the programs unveiled by the EC to hold the polls on the scheduled date positively. The two-month election program for proportional representation and First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral systems unveiled by the EC on Thursday starts from September 23.
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