Kathmandu, October 30

Advocate Sitaram Agrawal today filed two writ petitions at the Supreme Court demanding annulment of proportional representation ballot papers that the EC has already printed.

The EC has already printed 17.4 million PR ballot papers for both provincial and parliamentary polls. The petitioner demanded that PR ballot papers should be printed on the basis of the parties that have submitted their closed lists and there should not be more symbols than the parties that are contesting PR elections.

The petitioner has argued that the EC had printed the PR ballot papers before it could grant election symbols to the political parties which was against the laws related to provincial and parliamentary elections, said the petitioner’s lawyer Sunil Ranjan Singh. “These ballot papers have symbols for those political parties which have not submitted the closed lists,” the petitioner argued.

He stated that there were only 49 parties that were contesting PR elections but there were 88 election symbols in the PR ballot papers.

Agrawal has argued in his petition that the EC’s decision to print single sheet of ballot paper for provincial and parliamentary PR election before the publication of final PR list was unlawful.

He also argued that the Election Commission’s directive which prohibits parties from sending their PR candidates  from the lower order of PR clusters was also against the spirit of inclusion.

The petitioner has also urged the court to issue interim order to the Election Commission.

The Election Commission and the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers have been named defendants in both the writ petitions.