Voting Begins Across Karnali Province Amid High Voter Turnout Expectations

Surkhet. Voting has commenced in Karnali. Provincial Election Officer Lal Bahadur Gurung stated that voting began at 7:00 AM on Thursday across all polling stations in the province.

Karnali has a total voter population of 1,037,250, comprising 509,361 female voters and 527,886 male voters. Surkhet alone has 248,938 voters.

Dailekh has a total voter count of 161,204, while Salyan has a total of 162,449 voters. Dolpa has the lowest number with 24,115, Mugu has a total of 36,031, Jumla has 71,739, Kalikot has 85,446, and Humla has 34,372 voters.

Likewise, Jajarkot has 107,091 voters, and Rukum West has 106,660 voters.

Until the 2079 elections, there were 1,006,834 voters in the province. Provincial Election Officer Lal Bahadur Gurung mentions that more than 26,000 voters were added through the re-registration campaign. With this addition, the total voter count in the province has reached 1,037,250.

Approximately 70 percent of the total votes are expected to be cast. Karnali has designated 941 polling stations and over 1,400 polling centers.

Karnali, which consists of 10 districts, has 12 House of Representatives constituencies. Surkhet and Dailekh each have 2 constituencies, while the remaining districts have 1 each. A total of 138 candidates are competing in these constituencies.

This time, the electoral competition in Karnali is particularly anticipated to be between four major political parties. The established parties, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Centre), and the newer political party Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) are in the electoral field, fielding candidates in all constituencies.