“We received assurances about drinking water supply for our village on numerous occasions in the past,” said Bisnu Nepali, who was busy laying the pipe into the ground. “On Sunday, we received the pipe and, hopefully, we will have drinking water very soon,” he added. [break]
The landless people living on the bank of the Charange river since the last five years were promised drinking water supply by office bearers of the consumer committee. Following the promise, the squatters dug the canal some six month ago to lay down the pipe. But, they received the pipe only last Sunday.
The whole squatter population had to join the Nepali Congress, which has the support of chairman of the Drinking Water Consumers Group, to secure the drinking water supply.
Dan Bahadur Chaudhari Kurmi, Madhesi People´s Right Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) candidate for constituency no- 2 in Kapilvastu district, was appointed minister in various governments formed after the election of the Constitution Assembly (CA) in 2008. Kurmi´s poll pledge to widen the road and black-top the dirt roads turned out to be a hollow promise as he could not execute any development activities in his constituency.
After the voters reminded him of the developmental promises he made during the last CA election, Kurmi hired a dozer on his own and tried to build a road as demanded by the voters. But these efforts to woo the voters was foiled after the district administration stopped the development activity, terming it as against the election code of conduct.
The district administration also foiled efforts by the political parties to impress voters with the distribution of land ownership certificates to the landless in Palpa. As a start, the UCPN (Maoist) tried to distribute landownership certificates to the landless in Kaseni VDC, constituency no -2 in Palpa, with the aim of getting all the credit for the party and impressing the voters. The CPN-UML complained to the authorities that the UCPN (Maoist) was trying to sway voters ahead of the poll date with the land ownership certificates, and the program was stopped. Later, UML itself tried the same technique to impress voters.
Aforementioned are just a few examples of poll code violation across the Western Development Region. Despite the election code of conduct prohibiting any development activities during poll campaigning, political parties are not only breaching the poll code during their publicity campaign but they are also involved in carrying out construction work to impress voters. Parties have been breaching the poll code and executing immediate development works to impress voters. Civil society leaders blame political party leaders for not abiding by the code to ensure free and fair elections in the region.
“Organizing of feasts, using dozers and other machinery for immediate construction activities and using such publicity means breach of the poll code has been going on unabated in the district,” said Megharaj Sharma, a Palpa-based veteran journalist, “ This trend should not be overlooked; otherwise it will create a huge problem in conducting elections in a free and fair manner,” he added.
Lok Darshan Regmi, Western Regional Administrator, speaking satirically about the party leaders, urged them to keep up after the election also the enthusiasm for development that they have been showing during the poll campaign. “Creating a poll environment is the responsibility of the political parties also,” said Ragmi. Chief District Officer in Rupandehi, Bal Krishna Panthi informed that the administration would caution the candidates at the very first instance of poll code breach. “If the code violations continue, the Election Commission is informed for taking further action,” Panthi said.
However, Chief District Officer of Kapilvastu, Krishna Prasad Ghimire, said that despite rampant incidents of poll code violation, only a few people complain about it and that too orally. “We have not received any written complaints about code violation. We have been taking action on the basis of our own monitoring and the verbal complaints we receive,” said Ghimire. Kashiram Gaire, chief of Kapilvasu District Election Office, informed that they seized publicity material from the local FM radio station after the station was found flouting the poll code and carrying broadcasts supporting particular parties.
(With help from Sher Bahadur KC in Butawal, Rekha Bhushal in Bhairahawa, Surendra Pokharel in Kapilvastu, Teknarayan Bhattarai in Palpa and Arjun Bhusal in Arghakhachi)
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