Kathmandu, December 7
In the upcoming election for members of the House of Representatives to be held on Falgun 21, a total of 102 political parties will contest the election independently.
Out of 120 political parties that applied to participate in the election, 102 parties have submitted applications to contest on their own, according to Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai. He said that 12 political parties have applied to contest jointly by using common election symbols.
According to him, these 12 political parties have formed different groups and will contest the election using five election symbols.
“We had received 120 separate applications to participate in the election and to contest with individual election symbols. Among these, the applications of 102 parties that wished to contest independently have been approved,” he said. “Twelve parties, not as a single group but in different combinations of two or three parties, had applied to use common election symbols. These applications have been approved to use five election symbols.”
Spokesperson Bhattarai informed that a total of 114 political parties will participate in the election by using individual and joint election symbols. According to him, 114 parties will take part in the House of Representatives election through 107 election symbols.
The Election Commission has already approved the applications of the political parties.
“Out of 120 applications, 114 political parties have been allowed to participate in the election. Among them, 102 parties will contest using their own election symbols, while 12 parties will contest in different groups using five election symbols. In this way, 114 parties will participate in the House of Representatives election through 107 election symbols,” he said.
The Commission has started the election programme for the proportional representation system for the House of Representatives from Sunday.
Political parties wishing to participate in the proportional representation system can submit applications until Tuesday. The submitted applications will be studied and approved by Mangsir 26. The deadline for submitting the closed list of proportional candidates has been fixed for Poush 13 and 14. The Commission stated that 50 per cent of the candidates in the closed list must be women. The schedule for filing nominations under the direct election system is set for Magh 6.
The number of political parties visiting the Election Commission to submit applications for participation in the proportional representation election has increased.
