Kathmandu, July 2

The Election Commission has formed a committee to make an action plan for holding provincial and parliamentary elections on the dates it has suggested to the government.

The poll panel had suggested to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to hold provincial and parliamentary elections separately, but before the last week of November to meet the constitutional deadline.

Local, provincial and parliamentary elections should be held before January 21 as per the constitution obligation.

“We have formed a committee to make an action plan for elections,” EC commissioner Ila Sharma told The Himalayan Times. She said that the EC commissioners reminded Prime Minister Deuba about the constitutional deadline for holding elections and the urgency to hold elections before the cold spells of December.

According to commissioner Sharma, the government has to declare election dates, enact laws related to provincial and parliamentary elections and provide report of the Constituency Delimitation Commission as soon as possible.

The government has not yet formed the Constituency Delimitation Commission.

Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal said that the Election Commission has started preliminary homework for holding provincial and parliamentary elections on the date it has advised to the government.

He said that the election body had to do a lot of preparation — overall planning and budgetary allocations for different works.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Narendra Dahal said that the EC had directed officials concerned to expedite the vote counting process. “For that we have directed EC officials to deploy more officials and increase additional counting desks,” he added.

He said that the EC was worried about the sluggish vote counting in the metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities, where counting of votes were halted at several local levels due to disputes between and among political parties and their candidates.

He said vote counting would not be completed within a week as declared by the EC, if political parties and their candidates obstructed counting over minor issues.

Earlier, the Election Commission sought the help of all political parties, candidates and their representatives in its efforts to count votes and expedite the counting process and directed the chief returning officers and returning officers to proceed with and/or continue vote counting even if all or some candidates or their representatives were not present during vote counting.