The Election Commission (EC) sent another letter to the Rastriya Janata Party, Nepal on Friday to correct the list of candidates to be elected under the Proportional Repre-sentation category of Province 2 assembly, after the party submitted the same list after an earlier notice.

The party has won 10 proportional representation (PR) seats in Province 2. Going by the population composition in the province, the RJP-N has to set aside one seat for indigenous nationalities, one for Tharus, two for Dalits, five for Madhesis and one for the Muslim community as per the Directives on PR Elections to Provincial Assemblies.

The party first submitted the list by breaching the order of candidates submitted to the EC before the polls. According to election officials, it had not represented certain communities. “As the RJP-N submitted the rejected list, we wrote another letter to the party on Friday calling for a revision as directed,” said election Commissioner Narendra Dahal. According to Clause 34 (3) the directive, a party cannot choose candidates from the same community from the lower order without picking those higher on the list for representation.

“While incorporating two names—the order of listed candidates has been breached,” said an RJP-N leader. According to leader Keshav Jha, the party does not have any candidate representing indigenous nationalities, Tharus and Dalit women.

The problem had surfaced when the party submitted the PR list before the recent elections to the provincial assemblies and the House of Representatives.

According to Clause 13 (3) of directive, the parties need to ensure 6.61 percent candidates from indigenous nationalities, 4.89 percent from Khas-Aryas, 5.27 percent from Tharus, 17.29 percent from Dalits, 54.36 percent from Madhesis and 11.58 percent from Muslims in Province 2 “as far as possible”.

But the EC accepted the list even as the RJP-N submitted the names of candidates only from the Madhesi community in the province.

An EC official knowledgeable on the matter told the Post recently that RJP-N’s list was accepted as the directive does not make it compulsory for the parties to accommodate candidates from different clusters. Now the EC rejects the list saying that the party failed to accommodate candidates from different clusters. “We will go to the court if our list is not accepted by the EC,” said RJP-N leader Jha.

As the EC is waiting for appointment of provincial chiefs to submit results of the PR elections, the RJP-N’s refusal to accommodate candidates emerges as another headache for the poll body.

Dahal warned that the EC could elect a limited number of candidates that meet the legal requirement if the RJP-N does not submit a revised list.