114 political parties are set to enter the fray for the House of Representatives elections to be held on 21 Falgun.

For this, the Election Commission has also provided election symbols to these parties. After the second Constituent Assembly election held in Mangsir 2070, the parties have shown enthusiastic participation in the House of Representatives election this time.

120 parties had applied to the Commission for the purpose of participating in the election. Of these, 117 applications were received for the purpose of participating in the election after removing duplicate names. Out of these, the Janajagaran Party has withdrawn its name, while the Akhand Sudurpaschim Party has been disqualified from participating in this election for not paying the fine imposed by the Commission earlier. Similarly, two groups from the Janaprajatantrik Party have applied for party registration separately, but the Commission has rejected the application of the party after it was seen that neither of them would be able to claim.

The Commission had set a deadline of 14 Mangsir for party registration for the House of Representatives election. Yagya Bhattarai, head of the law and political party division of the commission, said that 107 election symbols of political parties will remain on the ballot paper for the upcoming House of Representatives elections. Of these, 102 political parties are going to contest the elections with their own single election symbol. After removing duplicate names, the number of parties that have applied for the purpose of participating in the elections was 117.

Twelve political parties are participating in the elections with a common election symbol after making different agreements. The commission has approved 5 applications filed by two or more parties to jointly use a common symbol. The newly formed parties Ujjaya Nepal Party and Hamro Party Nepal, which had submitted a joint application with an agreement to contest the elections under a single election symbol, have later submitted separate applications to contest the elections under separate symbols. The interim government formed after the Gen-G rebellion is going to hold elections two years ahead of schedule after the dissolution of the House of Representatives. The election was announced for February 21 after President Ram Chandra Poudel dissolved the House of Representatives on the recommendation of Sushila Karki immediately after becoming Prime Minister on Bhadra 27.

After the election announcement, the number of political parties registered with the Election Commission, including the 25 newly added parties, had reached 143. Of these, 29 political parties will not participate in the election. Political parties have been using the party symbol they have already received as their election symbol. The symbol requested by the new parties has been granted on the basis of incompatibility with other parties. The political parties represented in the dissolved House of Representatives will have their symbols on the ballot paper in ascending order based on the number of proportional votes they received in the previous election.

Section 31 of the House of Representatives Election Act contains a provision regarding election symbols. It states that when including an election symbol on the ballot paper, the party representing the House of Representatives immediately before the election will have the symbol of the candidate of that party based on the number of votes it received under the proportional electoral system in the election to such House of Representatives. Similarly, in the case of parties not represented in the House of Representatives, the symbol of the candidate of that party will be on the ballot paper based on the order in which they were registered with the Commission for election purposes, the section states. Joint Secretary of the Commission Bhattarai said that the election symbol of the party candidate will be on the ballot paper as per the provisions of the law. He informed that even if it brings one seat, only the proportional votes of the parties represented in the House of Representatives will be on the ballot paper in the order in which they were registered. 

According to the number of votes received in the proportional representation in the 2079 House of Representatives election, this time the ballot paper will have the election symbols of 11 parties, starting from number one, namely UML, Congress, Nepali Communist Party, National Independent Party, National Prajatantra Party, Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal, Janmat Party, Nagarik Unmukti Party, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party Nepal, Nepal Mazdoor Kisan Party and Rastriya Janamorcha. After that, the symbols have been placed in the order of the new parties registered with the Commission for election purposes. 

After the second Constituent Assembly election held in November 2070, there has been a significant increase in the number of parties participating in the upcoming House of Representatives election. Out of 130 parties registered in the 2070 election, 122 participated in the election. Now, 114 parties are about to enter the electoral contest. Out of 74 parties registered with the intention of participating in the first Constituent Assembly election in 2064, 54 participated in the election. After the restoration of democracy, 20 political parties contested the election in the first parliamentary election held in 2048, 24 in the mid-term election in 2051, and 40 in the general election in 2056. After the promulgation of the constitution by the Constituent Assembly, elections to the House of Representatives were held in 2074 and 2079. Out of 95 parties registered for election purposes in 2074, only 55 participated in the election, while out of 86 political parties registered for election purposes in 2079, only 61 parties contested the election. 

Dr. Gopal Krishna Shiwakoti, who has been involved in election observation for a long time, interprets the readiness of a significant number of parties to participate in the election as an awareness of the election. ‘Nepal is a small country. It is also backward in many ways. However, the faith of its citizens in democracy and human rights is great,’ said Shiwakoti, chairman of the National Election Observation Committee (NEOC), ‘It is a country with great aspirations within its diversity. It has different cultures, values, and issues. That is also why the number of parties has increased.’ 

In the election competition with a joint symbol