More voters register in Valley

KATHMANDU, JUL 17 -
Even as the deadline for the voter roll registration officially expired

on Monday, District Election Offices in Kathmandu Valley remained busy on Tuesday, enlisting more voters for the Constituent Assembly (CA) elections scheduled for November 19.

Lalitpur and Bhaktapur election offices managed to register almost all voters who had been handed out ‘confirmation slips’ on Monday.

The Kathmandu election office, however, could not accommodate around half the voters who had applied on Monday. The Kathmandu office had distributed the slips to around 1,200 citizens, while only 688 showed up at the office on Tuesday, according to Kathmandu District Election Officer Sambhu Prasad Chalise.

Bhaktapur district, which had distributed 200 slips, successfully registered 150 voters on Tuesday. The district registered 154,000 voters since the registration drive began. Bhaktapur had registered 159,000 voters during the 2008 CA elections.

“This time, there hasn’t been any duplication. The voter roll campaign has been very fair and successful,” Bhaktapur District Election Officer Choodamani Panthi said.

The Lalitpur office, which had distributed 775 slips on Monday, entered 750 voters on the roll on Tuesday. Employees in the office personally made telephone calls to the slip holders and urged them to get officially registered. “After waiting till 4 pm, we called up around 35 applicants who had taken the slips. Most of them turned up and we worked a little over 5 pm,” said Lalitpur District Election Officer Shanta Nepal Marasini.

Lalitpur district, which had registered 232,000 voters in the 2008 polls, has enlisted 234,000 this time around.

So far, the Election Commission has registered 12,201,950 voters in its new biometric voter registration system. Latest updates from some cities like Dang, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Pokhara, Birgunj and Kathmandu are yet to be entered in the new system.

“Those receiving the official confirmation slips from the district offices will be given another opportunity to get themselves registerd in a couple of days,” Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety said.

He said the voter rolls will be sent to 4,721 local constituencies by July 23 for final verification.

Some Madhes-based parties have, however, doubted the EC’s ‘effectiveness’ in the voter roll update campaign, arguing that thousands of citizens are still deprived of the registration.

“With the undemocratic procedure opted by the election authority, an estimated 300,000 voters have been denied voting rights, which is unacceptable to us,” Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum-Nepal Chairman Upendra Yadav said in Birgunj.

A total of 17.6 million voters were registered during the 2008 elections, while only 15.5 million cast their votes then. This time, the EC plans to register 12.5 million citizens in the new system.

The 2011 census shows that the number of eligible voters until February last year is around 15.4 million. The EC said the new voter roll is “the most fair and democratic” so far.

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