Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ayodhee Prasad Yadav has said that the Election Commission (EC) has begun study to grant voting rights to government officials for the upcoming federal and provincial elections. CEC Yadav said that decision regarding the matter would come within few days.

Speaking during a training programme of the election and voting officers from 17 districts organised in Dhulikhel, Kavre on Tuesday, CEC Yadav informed about the EC conducting a study regarding the demands for voting rights to government officials.

“Our friends from the trade unions have drawn our attention and the Supreme Court has also ordered EC to come up with its position on the matter,” said CEC Yadav, “We have little time but we will try our level best to honour the court’s order.”

A division bench of Supreme Court (SC) Justices Dipak Raj Joshi and Dambar Bahadur Shahi on Monday had concluded that an interim order was not needed on the demand for voting rights to the government officials saying that the EC itself was there to consider over the issue by not going against the Constitution of Nepal and interim order was not required on voting rights to the government officials deployed in the polls.

On Sunday, the SC had sought amicus curiae after the hearing on the writ petition.

After the SC's latest move, nearly 500,000 officials to be deployed in the polls will not be exercising their franchise in the upcoming November 26 and December 7 elections to the House of Representatives and State Assemblies.

Likewise, CEC Yadav directed the Chief District Officers not to deploy government officials directly associated with political parties for the upcoming polls saying that the deployment of the public officials should be objective and fair.

Similarly, the EC Chief directed the local level administrations to pull down any publicity materials including pamphlets, posters that are against the election code of conduct.

Meanwhile, EC spokesperson Nawaraj Dhakal reiterated that there is no problem in holding the elections on scheduled dates though the election governing body has been tasked with printing three separate ballot papers.