Kathmandu, Nepal, November15, 2022: With the approaching date for both the federal and provincial level elections to elect members of the House of Representatives (HoR) and provincial assemblies, security threats have also been mounting in the country.
The increasing trend of clashes and vandalism has posed threats to hold the elections in a free, fair and fearless manner. Clashes between the cadres of various political parties and supporters of the candidates as well as acts of vandalism seem to have increased across the country in recent days.
Withstanding the security threats to hold the elections in fair and fearless manner, the government has made a plan to deploy about 300,000 security personnel to maintain security during the elections. The plan to deploy security personnel in the polling stations has failed to mention security during the election campaign.
About 71,693 personnel of Nepal police along with 115,000 temporary police are going to be mobilized in the elections. In addition of that 35,000 personnel of Armed Police Force (APF), 71, 000 personnel of Nepal Army and 200 from the National Investigation Department (NID) are also going to be mobilized in the elections, the Ministry of Home Affairs ( MoHP) has informed.
As the two elections are going to be held in a single phase on November 20, the deployment of security personnel would not sufficient in most of the polling stations that have no good track records of security during the past elections.
Instead of the clashes between the cadres of the political parties and supporters of the candidates, some violent groups have also posed threat to mention security during the elections. The Netra Bikram Chand-led communist party has already announced to foil the November 20 elections.
