Many voters in remote areas of Sarlahi do not know how to cast their votes in the September 18 local level election, though the District Election Office has claimed that it has mobilised 501 people for voter education programme.

The election day is just 12 days away and voter educators have still not reached many parts of Sarlahi, according to Ugrakanta Jha, a civil society representative.

“The voter education programme has not worked effectively. Many people will have no idea on how and where to stamp when they are handed with ballot paper. It is the job of voter educators to teach them,” he said.

 After holding two phases of local level elections on May 14 and June 28, the Election Commission (EC) is staging the third and final round of the election in eight districts of Province 2.

The percentage of invalid votes was unexpectedly high even in city areas during the previous two rounds of elections. 

“The EC did not learn any lesson from the results of the previous elections. The percentage of void votes is not going to go down in the upcoming election as well,” Ugrakanta said.

In rural parts of Sarlahi, even political parties have failed to reach out to the voters.

Surendra Prasad Singh, the district vice-president of Nepali Congress, said election campaigns could not be taken to many parts of the district because of floods that devastated many settlements and roads.

 “There’s no environment to canvass for votes in the flood-hit areas, where people are still waiting for relief materials,” he said.

Dilip Jha, the district chairman of Nepal Bar Association, said he himself was uncertain if he would be able to cast his vote correctly.

“Voter educators have not visited my area so far. When city voters themselves are unsure, how can rural voters know what is the right way of voting,” he said.

Deewakar Bhujel, chief election officer, was not ready to accept that the voter education programme was not being conducted in an effective and comprehensive manner.

“We have mobilised voter educators throughout the district to run door-to-door campaign,” he insisted.