An elderly casting votes on Sunday's general elections. (Photo: Nepalkhabar)
Voting is underway across Nepal to elect new members of federal parliament and provincial assemblies. The voting began at 7 am today morning.
According to the Election Commission (EC), 5,636 candidates are contesting the elections to the lower house and the Provincial Assembly under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) category, with 5,907 seats set aside for proportional representation (PR) category in the final closed list.
A total of 17,988,570 voters are eligible to vote in the election, for which 22,227 polling booths in 10,892 polling centres have been set up. Voting will continue till 5 pm.
This is the second time Nepal is holding general elections after the promulgation of a new Constitution in 2015. Voters are prohibited from taking mobile phones or cameras in the polling stations. There are 22,227 polling stations in 10,892 places across the country.
The EC printed 8,4,21,500 ballot papers. According to the EC, 2, 46,960 government employees have been mobilized during elections.
A total of 298,589 security personnel have been deployed to guard voting booths. Of them, 74,849 are from the Nepal Army, 71,693 from the Nepal Police, 35,116 from the Armed Police Force, 115,000 temporary police, and 1,921 from the National Intelligence Department.
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