Kathmandu, February 26
While starting preparations for local level elections, the Election Commission has found at least one thing: That it does not have enough ballot boxes to conduct the polls that are taking place after about two decades.
So, it is preparing to ask different countries for those boxes. It will be asking India to provide them. The poll body is also in talks with the government of Japan about those boxes that it will need to conduct the polls scheduled for May.
The EC estimates that it will require 25,000 more ballot boxes. An EC source informed that such a box should have the capacity of 80 litres (at least).
According to election commissioner Narendra Dahal, the EC has around 40,000 ballot boxes at its disposal, but only a few of them are of 80-litre capacity. EC says it cannot use small ballot boxes for local level elections because the ballot papers will be bigger than in other elections.
A source said the EC plans to bring in ballot boxes of 80 litre capacity from India. In addition to this, the EC has started talks for ballot boxes with the government of Japan.
