EC asks govt to give laws and fix polls date

Kathmandu - The Election Commission (EC) has written to the government to provide the report of the Constituency Determination Commission and other essential legislation for the election to the Provincial Assembly and House of Representative. 

A meeting of the EC held Tuesday under the chair of the Chief Election Commissioner Dr Ayodhee Prasad Yadav decided to write to the government through the Ministry of Home Affairs to this effect. 

Saying that elections to the Legislature-Parliament should be held by January 21, 2018 as per the constitutional provision, the EC has asked the government to provide laws and the report of the Commission to conduct the polls. 

The EC is of the perspective to conduct the province level polls by October second week, election to the national assembly by October last week and election to the Legislature-Parliament by November second week if the required laws were provided. 

EC's Spokesperson Surya Prasad Sharma said that the EC's suggestions include preparation of the Act on Province Assembly and Election to the House of Representatives by mid-July and report of the Constituency Determination Commission by July. 

However, the Constituency Determination Commission has not been constituted so far and the bills on election to the province assembly members, election to the national assembly members and election to the House of Representatives have been sent to the Home Ministry after preparing the preliminary draft. The EC has said that intense preparations were not possible as the bills were not passed from the Legislature-Parliament. 

The EC has also said that it has a very limited time to update the voters' namelist adding that voters' name could not be updated for the immediate polls after the polls date announcement. 

The EC has also said that if the Act on Voters' Namelist was not amended on time, the upcoming elections too should be held based on the namelist of the voters updated till February 2017. 

The EC has already informed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba about this issue as well.