Kathmandu, March 20:

Chief Election Commissioner Bhoj Raj Pokharel today urged the major political parties — the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist — to improve the nature of their election campaigning across the country.

The Election Commission (EC) today called leaders of the three parties for a meeting. “We called them as they were seen involved in unwanted activities and reminded them of the election fundaments and the code of conduct today,” he said while opening the EC Media Centre.

He has also shown concern about the recent incidents of unrest during the election campaign . “The EC expresses sorrow over the incidents of beating up of candidates of other parties, manhandling, abducting, threatening and obstructing the campaign programmes,” he said.

“The EC will be forced to fine the party concerned or to cancel the candidacy of the contender and even to cancel vote casting if the requests of EC were neglected and their activities continued,” he said.

The EC also called security chiefs for a separate meeting today and urged them to pay more attention to improve security situation in the context of the violence seen in various parts of the country .

Issuing a press release, the EC has also directed the chiefs of the government media today to abide by the election code of the conduct . The EC says it has to issue directions because it has received complaints from political parties on violation of f the code of conduct by the government media

The EC issued directions to the Election Officer at Ramechhap district today to investigate and submit a report on the case of Dev Shankar Paudel because the commission has received a complaint that Paudel was beaten badly at Priti Village Development Committee by Tara Narayan Shrestha “Bigul” of the CPN-Maoist, when he was on election campaign.

New poll schedule for Banke-2:

KATHMANDU: The EC has extended the deadline for filing candidature by the Rashtriya Jana Morcha in Banke-2 because of the death of Kamal Prasad Adhikari. Adhikari was shot dead by masked men on Tuesday. Only the the RJM would be allowed to nominate a substitute to Adhikari. — HNS