KATHMANDU: Election fever is gripping the whole nation at present as the parliamentary elections are less than four days away.
Candidate hopeful are sparing no efforts to lobby for the votes but what has instigated the locals in Kanchanpur is their lackadaisical attitude to impart the voters how to vote and what was the voting process is like for the upcoming twin elections to be held under two system-First-Past-The-Post and Proportional Representation.
The election to House of Representatives (HoR) and Province Assembly is scheduled on November 20 this year in a single phase. There are altogether 302,509 voters and three constituencies for HoR in Kanchanpur.
Karna Bahadur BK of Bhimdutta Municipality ward no 9 ranted, “Politicians visit us and lobby for vote but none has taught us or shown eagerness to teach us how to exercise our franchise. Voters here lack voter education. Elderly voters are confused about how to vote.”
Nanda Joshi of Bedkot Municipality-9 in the district disclosed that many voters are unaware about ballot paper and overall voting process. She lamented, “Politicians visited our house for four times. Alas, none of them taught us how many candidates we could cast vote for and how many types of ballot papers are there.”
The voters in certain places in the district are not only ignorant about the ballot papers and voting process, they are unaware about the candidates contesting from their respective constituencies.
Harish Bhatta of Krishnapur Municipality-1 frowned that candidate hopefuls visit his house regularly and beg for vote but do not tend to impart knowledge to them how to cast ballot rightly. “All they appeal to us is to cast our vote to them. They do not teach us how to vote correctly.”
Yam Buda of Bedkot added that whatever number of candidates visited his house, they just requested for vote and return. “Nobody has taught us how to vote rightly.
