Pokhara, March 7:

Poll activity is hotting up in Kaski district’s four constituencies as the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, the CPN-Maoist, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and other minor parties have established their election campaign offices and are busy canvassing support for their respective candidates for the polls.

Frontal wings of the parties have fanned out in urban and rural areas of the district, with the candidates stressing more on first-past-the-post system of election instead of a fully proportional one.

Every tea stall and locality here is abuzz with talk of the polls. The tea stalls are crammed with party cadres busy calculating the chances of each and every rival of their respective party’s candidate. Bijay Chapagain of Sildajurey VDC in constituency No 1 said he was seeing political leaders in the village after 56 years.

NC district secretary Nand Tiwari said the candidates in all four constituencies were holding public meetings for two days. He said that daily more than a dozen poll-related programmes were being held by the NC district unit while the candidates had set a target of visiting at least 100 households daily. He added that NC candidates in constituencies 1 and 4 were reaching remote villages to hold poll campaign programmes.

UML candidates in all four constituencies have stepped up their poll campaign, said UML alternative central member Tul Bahadur Gurung. Gurung said that the UML election campaign office was also inaugurated today in constituency No 3. Campaign offices are already functioning in the other three constituencies, he added.

The Maoist’s candidates are on a whirlwind tour of their respective constituencies. Maoist candidate for constituency No 1 and Local Development Minister Dev Gurung is busy campaigning since two days. The district unit of the Maoist said that Gurung would continue to campaign for another 10 days. Maoist Kaski in-charge Raj Kazi Tamu said that cadres have mobilised in all villages of the four constituencies. According to RPP Kaski president JB Kunwar, his party leaders and cadres are engaged in canvassing for a week.

Sant Bahadur Ghisingh of the Janamorcha Nepal said his party had already set up a poll campaign office and stepped up it’s poll campaign. Rastriya Janamorcha leader Shankar Baral said his party was also not lagging behind in campaigning for the CA polls.