Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Sunday urged the election commissioners to make voter education drive more effective to ensure greater participating of people in the upcoming federal and provincial elections scheduled for November 26 and December 7.

At a meeting with the election officials at Baluwatar, PM Deuba also assured of all necessary arrangements for ensuring larger participation of voters and lower number of invalid votes.

The first phase elections will be held in three weeks from now, but there have been reports that the Election Commission (EC) is yet to launch voter education programmes in various districts. 

The local elections held in three phases on May 14, June 28 and September 18 saw invalid votes in larger numbers, largely due to sheer size of ballot papers as well as ineffective voter education programmes. 

Records at the poll authority show that the percentage of void votes was 12.5 percent in the local elections, with the higher amount of wastage reported from the Tarai region.

In a statement, the EC said on Sunday that PM Deuba during his meeting with election commissioners expressed the government’s preparedness to extend all kinds of support the poll body requires. 

“Make necessary arrangements for the people to exercise their voting rights,” 

the statement quoted PM Deuba as telling the poll officials. 

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ayodhee Prasad Yadav said that the EC appreciates PM Deuba’s commitment to providing all kinds of support for the successful conduction of the polls. 

CEC Yadav, Election Commissioners Ishwari Poudel, Ila Sharma and Sudhir Kumar Shah and EC Secretary Begendra Sharma were present in the meeting.