Serpentine lines outside District Election Office signal arriving elections in Nepal

Serpentine lines stretched along the footpaths from the entrance of the District Election Office with to-be-registered voters filling up the application forms standing in the line or on the edge of the road.

The arriving deadline of previously elected local level representatives along with members of the House of Representatives (HoR) has increased enthusiasm for election amongst people.

"Encouraging participation of people is seen in ongoing voter registration campaign. People have been turning out to election offices all around the nation to register themselves up, we also are working to provide the service to people as we work from early morning till late evening so that everyone turning out here would get the chance to sign themselves up," Thakur Bhattarai, the District Election Officer at District Election Office, Kathmandu told ANI.

Halted on for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and announcement of snap elections by the earlier government under Prime Ministership of KP Sharma Oli, voter registration campaign resumed lately from November last year. Targeting temporary residents of Kathmandu Valley, the latest election campaign scheduled to run till mid of this month enables citizens above 18 years to register themselves in the voter list.

As per the official, the voter card later would be handed over to the voters a few days before the day of the election from their respective election centres in their hometown. On average 900 eligible voters who haven't signed up to exercise the franchise have been queuing outside the election office of Kathmandu."Voter registration continues throughout the year and is a continuous process, the COVID-19 pandemic also might have hampered the process. Also, people possibly waited and looked for the election dates and of course, they got busy with their own chores. Now with the special campaign to register voters is underway they might have got the speculation that elections are arriving near and as this campaign enables people to register from their temporary residence provided the reason of not being able to travel forth and back to their hometown due to various engagements, this has resulted in excitement and flood of people," the official remarked.As per Section 4 of the Act on Voters' Registration-2017, new voters can't be registered once the dates for elections are announced.

The Election Commission in June of 2020 had resumed voters' registration when hardly any voter approached the district offices of the commission amid fears of contracting Covid-19. Then in December same year, the then government under KP Sharma Oli announced dates for fresh elections dissolving the parliament which was later reinstated.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari on December 20, 2020, had announced mid-term parliamentary elections for April 30 and May 10 of 2021. But, Supreme Court on February 23, 2021, reinstated the House declaring that its dissolution was unconstitutional which paved the way for the resumption of voters' registration.

The second attempt to dissolve the parliament also was dwarfed by the Apex Court ultimately removing Oli from the post replacing him with Sher Bahadur Deuba. As per the law, a Nepali citizen with naturalized citizenship can register as a voter after crossing 16 years of age, but one can vote only after 18.

"I would vote for those who really would keep their words and really give life to statements they make bringing on the changes in society. We had enough with the leaders who promise to develop the nation but fail when it comes to practical implementation or bringing it to life, rather than voting for those I would choose the candidate who really seems to be convincing and bring on the real changes," Shyam Tamang, a voter in his 20's told ANI.

After the new update with the announcement of earlier election 16.2 million people are on the electoral roll which is expected to go high by about another million as more than 800 thousand have already registered themselves in the ongoing campaign. During the last parliamentary elections, the number was 15.42 million.

Even during the last federal and provincial elections held in 2017, a huge difference was found between the number of voters registered for local elections, held in early 2017, and for provincial and federal elections later that year.

The commission had printed and distributed an additional 2.17 million voters' identity cards before the provincial and federal elections after distributing 14.05 million for local elections.

( With inputs from ANI )

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