Kathmandu, July 3

The Election Commission is preparing to hold by-elections within next four months.

EC Spokesperson Shankar Prasad Kharel said that the poll panel was working on election manual and budget estimates to hold the by-elections within next four months.

The EC will have to hold by-elections in one constituency of Kaski for House of Representatives, in one constituency of Bhaktapur for provincial assembly, and one constituency each in Baglung and Dang for provincial assembly.

The EC will also have to hold by-elections for the post of five chiefs and deputy chiefs of local levels and 10 ward chairs.

Pokharel said the government will announce the dates of by-elections soon after consulting the poll panel.

One of the office bearers of the EC told THT that the poll panel will submit its proposal, including budgetary estimates to the government by next Monday. The government has announced in the new fiscal budget that it will hold by-elections within this fiscal.

That means the EC will have to hold the elections before November 26, as it will be difficult to conduct by-elections later, due to cold weather,” the office bearer added.

He said the EC was preparing the estimates of the expenditure required to hold by-elections. “We are going to authorise our district offices to manage materials that may be locally available for the polls,” the office bearer said adding that EC needed to arrange 67 types of materials for holding any type of election.

“As for materials for these types of polls our district offices can manage them locally,” he added. The Election Commission normally needs 120 days as part of preparations for HoR polls, and 80 days for provincial assembly polls.

The EC has begun works for by-elections from last week following Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s direction.