Dhangadi, July 2

A large number of votes cast in Dhangadi Sub-metropolis, the only sub-metropolitan city in Kailali, Province 4 were declared null.

Approximately 15 per cent of the total counted votes so far are said to be invalid. As per the chief returning officer’s office, a total of 14,092 votes were counted till today evening and of them 1,970 ballots were declared invalid.

The number of invalid votes is more than the total votes garnered by the mayoral candidate of the CPN-Maoist Centre (1,814).

As a large number of votes cast were declared invalid, all the leaders and candidates have been shocked.

The Nepali Congress mayoral candidate has obtained 3,661 votes, while independent and CPN-UML candidates have obtained 3,297 and 2,043 votes respectively.

Nepali Congress mayoral candidate Nrip Bahadur Odd said that it was a matter of serious concern that a large number of ballots had gone useless. “It clearly hints that voters’ education campaign has not been effective not only in the rural areas, but also in urban locations,” said Odd. He argued that votes, which were cast for different party candidates have been declared invalid. “Many votes were cast for the candidates of different forces but for the same post,” said Regional Returning Office Chief Mohan Acharya.

Chief Returning Officer Dhan Singh Mahara said that a large number of votes turned invalid due to lack of effective voter education. A significant number of voters in urban and district headquarters area used to complain that nobody approached them on how to cast votes until the poll date.

Devaki Bohara of Dhangadi Sub-metropolitan city said nobody taught her the voting procedure. “I saw the ballot papers for the first time at the polling booths,” said Bohara.

The Election Commission had claimed that it had deployed officials to educate voters about vote casting procedure.

Folks accused the officials of not reaching all the voters’ houses.

As per the regional Election Office Dhangadi, a total of 490 officials were deployed for voters’ education campaign in the district with 403,280 voters. “As the size and style of ballot papers were larger and different this time, a large number of ballots went invalid. Of the 76,403 voters in Dhangadi Sub-metropolitan City, 54,300 votes were cast in the sub-metropolis in the phase II civic polls.