• Political parties, candidates and elected representatives have to furnish details of poll expenses in 30 days

Kathmandu, July 12

The Election Commission today asked political parties, candidates and elected representatives to furnish details of their poll expenditure.

Issuing a public notice, the poll panel reminded the concerned political parties, candidates and elected representatives about provisions of the Local Level Election Act.

As per the Local Level Election Act -2017, political parties, candidates and elected representatives have to furnish details of poll-related expenses within 30 days of the election.

“We had asked all political parties, candidates and elected representatives in first phase of local level polls to submit their poll expenses and have again urged all participants in first and second phase of local level election to submit the details,” said EC spokesperson Surya Prasad Sharma. He said the public notice was issued to sensitise the issue, which was also a matter of public concern.

According to Sharma, the poll panel will take action against parties, candidates and elected representatives as per the law if they ignore the EC’s directive. He said that only very few political parties, candidates and elected representatives of the first phase of local level polls had furnished details of their polls expenditure.

As per the EC’s rules, each mayoral and deputy-mayoral candidate from a metropolitan city could spend Rs 750,000, ward member of metropolitan city could spend Rs 300,000, mayoral and deputy mayoral candidates of sub-metropolitan cities could use Rs 550,000, ward chief and ward members could use 250,000, mayoral and deputy mayoral candidates of municipality could spend Rs 450,000, ward members could spend Rs 200,000, chief and deputy chief of rural municipality could use 350,000 and each ward member could spend Rs 150,000.

However, no one believes the candidates spent as per the EC’s ceiling. Several other poll observation organisations said the poll expenditure of candidates was beyond the EC’s ceiling.

National Election Observation Committee’s Secretary General Gopal Krishna Siwakoti said that most candidates spent more than the ceiling fixed by the poll panel. “Almost all the candidates spend more than the ceiling. Huge sums of money were spent on elections,” said Siwakoti.

More than 110,000 candidates had contested the first and second phase of local level polls.