According to EC officials, the constitutional body has already set out work procedures to check the authenticity of voter signatures submitted by the new political parties which were not represented in the former CA.
Political parties that had sent elected representatives to the then CA must submit their respective manifestos, statutes, regulations, flags and election symbols, among other things, while each of the new political parties must also submit the signatures of 10,000 voters in order to be registered at the EC. Likewise, political parties represented in the former CA should submit a letter from the parliament secretariat as evidence of their representation.
As per the work procedures, the EC will check the authenticity of 200 voter signatures selected randomly.
“The EC will randomly select 200 voter signatures submitted by each new political party for the verification as it is not practical to check all 10,000 signatures,” a knowledgeable source privy to the development told Republica.
The constitutional body will first check whether or not each new political party has submitted signatures of 10,000 voters. “We have already begun entering serial numbers of voters for the verification purpose,” another EC official told Republica.
The EC will match the signatures against signatures in the new electoral rolls it has prepared. Similarly, the constitutional body will verify the citizenship certificate numbers.
When asked whether or not the constitutional body would register a new party that is found submitting fake voter signatures, the EC official said, “Such political parties will be given one chance to submit voter signatures.”
Earlier, EC officials had conducted a sample test of about 60 signatures from Nepal Nagarik Party and found that only the signature of the party chairman, Krishna Hari Adhikari, was authentic and the remaining signatures were fake.
Fringe political parties have been objecting to the 10,000 signature provision arguing that it is intended to bar them from the new CA.
According to EC spokesman Bir Bahadur Rai, altogether 139 political parties including 32 parties that were represented in the then CA have applied to register at the EC for contesting the upcoming CA poll.
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