• Party workers educating voters as election volunteers failed to reach rural areas

Rajbiraj, December 4 Just two days left for the second phase of the parliamentary and provincial elections, but a large number of voters in the rural areas of Saptari district are still ignorant about voting procedure and method. Voters of rural areas expressed their concerns and worries about the voting process and complained that volunteers of voter education programme didn’t reach their settlements. As per District Election Office, Saptari, a total of 478 volunteers were deployed to educate voters in the district. Leaders and supporters of various political forces were seen organising voter education programmes after the volunteers deployed by the election office failed to reach rural areas. CPN-UML cadres were found educating voters at Bhardaha of Hanumannagar Kankalini Municipality-1 in Constituency No 1 today. The left alliance municipal coordinator Laxman Mandal said his party was deploying around 150 people to educate voters after they heard that a large chunk of the population was deprived of voter education. Dhanabandi Sada of Hanumannagar-Kankalini Municipality-5 said that she was ignorant about the process of casting ballot. She reported that nobody approached her locality to teach them about the voting process. Bhogilal Sada of the locality said though he heard volunteers had come to the adjoining village to educate voters, nobody came to his village. “With just two days remaining for elections, there are hundreds of people who don’t know about casting vote,” said Sada. Likewise, Ram Kumari Sada of Khadak Municipality-5 complained that nobody approached his village to educate voters. “Candidates were conducting door-to-door campaign with a large number of supporters. They canvassed voters but didn’t teach them how to vote, which might lead to increase in the number of invalid votes,” said Sada. Saptari Chief District Officer Bhagirath Pandey admitted that they failed to expedite the voter education programme as per their expectation. “This move was not possible by volunteers deployed by district election office alone. A proper coordination among volunteers, representatives of political forces, social mobilisers, and other stakeholders is a must to make voter education effective and extensive,” said CDO Pandey.