Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ayodhee Prasad Yadav said on Thursday that holding provincial and federal elections at one go will be difficult from the logistical point of view and proposed delaying the two polls by two weeks than the dates the Election Commission (EC) had earlier floated.

Addressing a seminar on “Electoral Constituency Delimitation Commission in Nepal” organised by Democracy and Election Concern Nepal, CEC Yadav said the EC was ready to give “a grace period of 15 more days” to hold the two elections on different dates.

Earlier, the EC had proposed provincial elections in the second week of October and federal polls in the third week of November. 

But, citing limited time, as the country must hold the two polls by January 21, the government had floated a proposal with the EC on holding both the elections on the same date. Most of the political parties also were in favour of the government proposal. 

Stating that holding both elections will be a bit difficult, CEC Yadav said: “We can rather hold provincial polls by October 22 and elections of House of Representatives in November,” he added. 

The EC is particularly concerned about printing ballot papers and managing human resources if both the elections are held together.

 Around 70 million ballot papers need to be printed for the two elections as separate ballot papers for first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) systems will be required for each voter. 

There were also talks about using only one ballot paper for both the electoral systems, where one vote cast for a candidate for a particular party under FPTP will be counted one vote for the same party. This, however, was proposed if both the elections are held together. 

Yadav, however, made it clear that the EC could consider holding both the elections on the same date, provided that the government brings laws for using a single ballot paper for both the electoral systems. 

The idea of using single ballot paper for FPTP and PR, however, has been criticised by some parties, which say this will limit people’s choice.