KATHMANDU, August 21: Only the election symbols of the candidates who will be running in the elections to the House of Representatives and the provincial assemblies to be held in a single phase on November 20, will be printed on the ballot papers. In the local elections held on May 13, ballot papers were printed with additional election symbols for parties registered for election and independent candidates.
When the ballot paper was printed in that way, the ballot papers became large and the number of blanks was also increased. Shaligram Sharma Paudel, the spokesperson for the Election Commission, informed Republica that the ballot papers will be printed by including the election symbols of the candidate who will be the first to be elected in the upcoming federal and provincial assembly elections and the candidates who will be elected (directly) and the parties which will be running for the proportional system.
Ballot papers printed for 36 districts
The Commission has said that 165 types of ballot papers will be printed for the federal government, 330 for the provinces, seven for the seven provinces and one for the proportional electoral system. The Commission has prepared for proportional suffrage by including four separate ballots, marking places, and ballot boxes in the polling station, and including temporary voters in the temporary voter list including employees working in the election, security personnel, prisoners, voters in old age homes operating with approval.
Rs 10 billion budget, 200,000 manpower
The Commission has sent to the Ministry of Finance for the approval of a budget of Rs 10 billion for the upcoming elections. Discussions are being held between the Ministry and the Commission today. The Commission has approved the Manpower Management Guidelines, 2022 and it is estimated that a total of two hundred thousand employees will be required to conduct the elections successfully.
According to Commission Spokesperson Paudel, 57 types of election materials will be used in the election. Among them, 42 types of goods will be purchased from the commission and 15 types of goods will be purchased from the district level. Spokesperson Sharma said that the procurement process (bidding) has already started as it was found that the cost would be reduced by purchasing from the center.
