Youth have submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission to ensure the right to vote for Nepali students pursuing higher education abroad starting from the upcoming elections.

The memorandum was submitted to Acting Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari on Sunday under the leadership of groups including ‘New Era’ and ‘Gen-G Movement’.

‘The memorandum we submitted has three main demands. Digital voting system, full voting rights and immediate implementation,’ said Gen-G leader Hem Chaudhary. ‘More than 60 Nepali student groups from 12 countries around the world have expressed support for this campaign.’

Gen-G leader Chaudhary himself has returned from studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

The memorandum demands that Nepalis living abroad should be able to participate in both direct and proportional systems. Leader Chaudhary said that it is unacceptable that even after 17/18 years of democracy, Nepalis living abroad are deprived of their basic political rights.

The team submitting the memorandum has expressed concern that despite the government's commitment to grant voting rights to Nepalis living abroad, there is a delay in policy and technical preparations. 'The commission should rise above political pressure and provide the necessary infrastructure and voting rights to all Nepalis living abroad from this election onwards,' the memorandum states.

This campaign has been supported by Nepali student organizations in countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, China, India, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and France.

In the US alone, there are Nepali groups studying at prestigious institutions such as Harvard University, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Duke, Pennsylvania, Chicago University, and Yale University.

Similarly, Canada's McGill and the University of British Columbia have also joined the campaign. Nepali student groups from the London School of Economics and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, and MIT in Australia have expressed support.