February 3: The Election Commission (EC) has announced to return Rs 3 billion to the state coffers that was not spent during the general elections held on November 20.   

The government had allocated a budget of Rs 10 billion for the election and had released Rs 8.49 billion. The actual amount spent during the election was Rs 6.54 billion, said Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya during a press conference.
CEC Thapaliya said the commission adopted austerity measures and transparency during the election expenditures to limit the election expenses.    
According to EC officials, some budget will be used in the elections of the president, vice-president and the NA member by-election and the remaining amount will be returned to the state coffers.    
He took time to pledge legal amendments for providing temporary voting card to government and private sector employees to ensure their election rights towards the proportional electoral system from the centers accessible for them in the next periodic elections.

He was of the opinion of legally defining the matter of implementing the electrical voting system. Thapaliya also assured that the EC would assess the nature of invalid votes and situation behind it and make the voter education more effective in the days to come.

He said if the date of elections of all levels or the term of people’s representatives are clearly specified in the law, there would be no questions while announcing the election dates.    
The Chief Election Commissioner further viewed that the Office of the Election is not legally allowed to disqualify any election candidate when the candidate self- announces that he/she holds all the documents demanded by the law towards that end.-- RSS