People in 136 local units of the eight districts in Province 2 are voting on Monday to elect their representatives.The Election Commission (EC) has said all the preparations for the polls have been over. Voting will take place between 7am and 5pm.

Chief Election Commi-ssioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav appealed to voters on Sunday to exercise their democratic right of electing their representatives for the local government for a five-year term.

Remembering the devastation caused by recent floods and inundation in the province, Yadav urged people to “give one day for the nation”, by forgetting the sorrow caused by the natural disasters.

The EC expects good participation of voters in the third phase of local level elections, with the agitating Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal getting on board the elections.

In the first phase of local polls, voter turnout was 74 percent, which increased to 76 percent in the second phase, according to the EC. The RJP-N, formed after the merger of six Madhes-based parties, had boycotted the first and second rounds of polls.

The government had announced on February 20 its plan to hold the local polls in a single phase on May 14. But the election has stretched over three rounds, largely due to the protests of some Madhes-based parties.

The polls were held in provinces 3, 4 and 6 on May 14 and in provinces 1, 5 and 7 on June 28, electing people’s representatives to the local councils for the first time in 20 years.

In order to ensure maximum participation, the EC has allowed voters to cast the ballot by showing the voter identity card issued for the 2013 Constituency Assembly elections, citizenship certificate, passport, driving licence, land ownership certificate or any other ID issued by a government agency, provided that their names are on the voter roll.

The EC has appealed to the people to participate in the elections without fear.In the run-up to the vote, few violent clashes have been reported in a region considered “very sensitive” from the security point of view.

The third-phase polls will elect 6,627 people’s representatives in total. There are 37,236 candidates, 39 percent of them women, in the fray, according to the poll authority. Some eight candidates have been elected unopposed.

Forty percent women have been elected in the two phases in the local federal units. After the polls in Province 2, a total of 36,639 posts in 753 local units will be manned by people’s representatives.

Around 68,000 security personnel will be deployed to maintain law and order during the elections. The security arrangement is robust, said Home Ministry Spokesman Ram Krishna Subedi.