Election officers return to capital from Khotang

Khotang, April 25

Election officers deployed to hold local level elections returned to the capital from Khotang today as the government had proposed to hold the polls in two phases.

With the recent decision to hold polls in two phases, the Election Commission had directed election officers and other officials, except chief officers, deployed in districts where polls would be held in the second phase, to return to Kathmandu, yesterday.

The directive also postponed the task of establishing the offices of the election officers in one municipality and eight rural municipalities of the district. As the EC has to give priority to poll preparations in the districts of provinces 3, 4 and 6 in the first phase, the officials of the districts of province 1, 2, 5 and 7 returned to the capital, said District Election Officer Dinesh Khatri.

Voters’ education campaign that kicked off from April 14 has been postponed until May 19.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has already dispatched ballot papers to Khotang for the upcoming local polls. A helicopter belonging to the Nepali Army dropped the ballot papers in the presence of security personnel and the chief election officer.

“We have received 134,000 ballot papers,” said election officer Dinesh Khatri. A total of 115,644 voters will cast their votes in the district, which has two municipalities and eight rural municipalities.