Local-level election will be exemplary: CEC Thapaliya

Kathmandu: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya has said EC would make utmost efforts in order to make the forthcoming local level election exemplary.

CEC Thapaliya said it during a discussion it held with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Press Council Nepal, Advertisement Board, Rastriya Samarchar Samiti (RSS), Gorkhapatra Corporation, Radio Nepal, and Nepal Television on Friday. The discussion focused on how local level election could be made free and fair with maximum participation of voters and the role State media could play on it.

CEC Thapaliya viewed the discussion was organized in a bid to facilitate the activities of State media in the publicity of local level election. “Media has a significant role to make election effective and encourage people for voting,” he said, adding that EC alone could not conduct entire activities relating to election. He suggested the media to augment the election related news and views in the days.

The EC is managing necessary budget for the election. As per law and local level structures, a total of 35,221 people’s representatives will be elected from the local level election. Similarly, for the local level assembly, 4,968 people’s representatives will also be elected.

CEC Thapaliya suggested that the public media could introduce election-focused programmes. He directed the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) to make arrangement for documenting 12,000 polling stations via technology.

The EC has prepared a draft of the policy to pay serious attention to the use of social networking sites to discourage false, misleading news, and rumours about elections, it has been learnt. “To make elections effective, it will be appropriate to disseminate separate bulletins relating to elections or provide election related links through dedicated pages of Rastriya Samachar Samiti and Gorkhapatra. It will help once one reads bulletins related to elections disseminated by RSS,” said CEC Thapaliya.

Stressing the need for prompt dissemination of credible news on election, he said, “News should be dispatched in an intensive way from mid-March.”

To make elections effective, telecommunication providers will look after technology affairs and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology coordinates on it.