115 Voter Education Volunteers Deployed in Makwanpur to Reduce Invalid Votes Ahead of House of Representatives Election

Makwanpur. To reduce the rate of invalid votes in the House of Representatives election scheduled for this coming Falgun 21, 115 voter education volunteers have been mobilized in Makwanpur.

One voter education volunteer has been deployed in each of the 105 wards across all 10 municipalities of Makwanpur, totaling 105 volunteers, and 10 monitors have been mobilized, one for each municipality.

According to Hari Prasad Dhakal, Chief of the Bagmati Province Election Office, Hetauda, the volunteers deployed in the wards through the voter education program are providing information through door-to-door visits about the election process, voting procedure, method of casting a vote, correct way to vote, and how to fold the ballot paper after stamping the 'Swastika' mark so that it is not invalidated before being dropped into the ballot box.

Chief Dhakal stated that female volunteers, mother education workers, and child development facilitators were selected, trained, and mobilized for the voter education program, which will run until Falgun 17. Appointments for staff assigned to Makwanpur for the House of Representatives election began today. Election Office Chief Dhakal stated that appointments have begun for 3,366 staff assigned to both constituencies in Makwanpur from the Office of the Chief Returning Officer.

In the two constituencies of Makwanpur, 2,244 staff and 1,122 volunteers will be deployed at a rate of 6 personnel per 374 polling stations. According to Chief Dhakal, each polling station will have one Voting Officer, one Assistant Voting Officer, three support staff, and one helper.

Preparations are underway to conduct a training program in Hetauda from Falgun 12 to 14 for the Voting Officers and Assistant Voting Officers who will be stationed at the polling centers. After the training, the staff will be deployed to their respective polling centers starting from Falgun 16.

Chief Dhakal informed that the work of schedule filing, cleaning, and packing of ballot boxes for the election has been completed. Out of the 167 polling stations in Makwanpur for the House of Representatives election, 19 polling stations have been placed on the highly sensitive list. Mohan Raj Joshi, Deputy Chief District Officer of Makwanpur, stated that 19 polling stations located in six local levels of the district have been placed on the highly sensitive list, considering security sensitivity, following a meeting of the District Security Committee.

He further informed that 60 polling stations in the district have been listed as sensitive and 88 as normal. The 19 polling stations on the highly sensitive list include 26 polling centers. According to him, the 19 polling stations listed as highly sensitive include five in Bakaiya Rural Municipality, six in Raksirang Rural Municipality, five in Bagmati Rural Municipality, one in Bhimphedi Rural Municipality, one in Manahari Rural Municipality, and one in Kailash Rural Municipality.

A total of 374 polling centers have been established across 167 polling stations in Makwanpur this time. In Makwanpur, which has two constituencies for the House of Representatives, Constituency No. 1 has 62 polling stations and 178 polling centers, while Constituency No. 2 has 105 polling stations and 196 polling centers.

Makwanpur has a total of 315,334 voters, including 161,953 males, 153,376 females, and five others.