Elections are being held for 275 seats for members of the House of Representatives on 21 Falgun 2082. Of these, 165 will be decided through direct elections and 110 seats through by-elections.
What you should know
Of the approximately 11,000 polling stations scheduled for the upcoming House of Representatives elections, one-third have been included in the "highly sensitive" list from a security perspective.
Elections are being held for 275 seats for the House of Representatives on 21 Falgun 2082. Of which 165 will be decided through direct and 110 seats through by-elections. For that, the Election Commission has designated 10,967 polling stations and 23,112 polling stations.
Anand Kafle, spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs, said that one-third of the designated polling stations, i.e. 3,680, have been included in the highly sensitive list. The polling stations and polling stations designated by the Commission have been classified into three categories based on security challenges: highly sensitive, sensitive and general. One-third of which have been placed on the highly sensitive list, while 4,442 polling stations have been placed on the sensitive and 2,845 stations have been placed on the general list based on security sensitivity.
The list classified in terms of security may fluctuate slightly until election-focused manpower is mobilized, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is said that there may be some changes in this after the security situation in all seven provinces is over.
The government has already decided to mobilize 325,000 security personnel from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, National Investigation Department and 'Election Police' (formerly called Temporary Police) for the upcoming election security. 79,727 from the army, 71,620 from the police, 35,116 from the Armed Police Force, 1,900 from the Investigation Department and about 147,000 election police are going to be deployed for election security. The Home Ministry is preparing to recruit 132,357 election police through the police and 14,570 through the Armed Police Force under the election police and deploy them for a period of 40 days. For that, the process of recruiting election police will be taken forward soon, says Kafle, spokesperson of the Home Ministry. After the selection and training of election police, preparations are underway to deploy security at polling stations and polling centers in provinces, districts, constituencies, municipalities, wards and within wards classified on the basis of security sensitivity.
10,879 polling stations and 22,272 polling stations were designated for the representative and provincial assembly member elections held in Mangsir 2079. This time, 75 polling stations and 875 centers have been added.
There were 17.988,570 voters in the previous election. This time, 9.25 million voters have been added, reaching 18.93689 voters. The Election Commission has stated that the polling stations and centers have been expanded in proportion to the added voters. In the past, Nepal Police was deployed to guard the inside of the polling stations and polling centers, the election police as an assistant to the police, and then the army and the armed police based on risk.
This time too, the Ministry of Home Affairs has stated that security management is being carried out keeping in mind the shortcomings of the past in the deployment of security personnel. The Ministry of Home Affairs has stated that all five security mechanisms will be deployed so that there is no duplication in security management.
In election security, competition between political parties, the areas of control of the parties involved, international border areas, parties that have been members of parliament in the past, emerging powers, etc., districts bordering international borders, high mountain, mountain, hilly, Terai, urban, suburban and rural areas are classified differently based on risk. Home officials say that this will be decided through a provincial-level security seminar and a district-by-district security review based on that.
The government has already held a provincial-level security seminar targeting election security in Sudurpaschim, Karnali, Lumbini and Gandaki provinces. The Koshi provincial-level security seminar is being held in Biratnagar on Wednesday. Madhes and then Bagmati and Valley-level security seminars are yet to be held. After the Valley and all seven provinces have been completed, a security review will be conducted through the Central Security Committee, and then the Home Minister and the heads of all four security agencies will discuss the election security preparations and situation with the Election Commission.
Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said that the polling stations and polling centers have been finalized and they will move forward after discussing this with the government mechanism.
According to the Commission's current schedule, the election will be held in one phase. Political parties have submitted the proportional closed list of 110 seats for the upcoming election to the Commission on Sunday and Monday. The program for candidate nomination has been scheduled for Magh 6.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, a security action plan has been prepared to organize security management by classifying the polling stations and polling centers determined by the Commission into three categories as security challenges. 64 parties have submitted their closed lists for the proportional representation elections. 114 parties have registered to participate in the direct elections.
