Kathmandu, May 12

With just a couple of days to go for the first phase of local level elections, a large number of people, including workers, students, and private employees, have been leaving Kathmandu Valley for their home districts to exercise their franchise in 20 years.

According to Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, around 9,000 vehicles with all seats occupied have been ferrying passengers to their destinations via Nagdhunga, Bhaktapur, Mudkhu and Pharping transits of the Valley for the past few days. Majority of the travellers are teenagers and youths who are going to cast vote in civic polls for the first time.

On normal days, around 7,000 vehicles used to leave the Valley. A traffic police official said over 100,000 people left for their home districts today itself and more than the double this number were expected to leave the Valley tomorrow as the government has imposed a ban on movement vehicles, except emergency ones, from 5:00am to 7:00pm on the polling day.

According to the Election Commission, banning ordinary public and private vehicles is necessary to ensure that people who want to manipulate votes cannot travel easily. Looking at the outflow of people from the Valley, around 600,000 people are expected to leave Kathmandu for their homes to caste vote.

The official said traffic police officers were mobilised to manage and regulate vehicular traffic so as to ensure passengers’ safety. They check if the vehicles are carrying passengers beyond capacity and also take action against drunk drivers. Traffic police have not allowed passengers to travel on the roof of vehicles.

Security has also been heightened on the national highways to prevent road rage and poll violence.