The Election Commission has directed the government to provide the basic resources and facilities demanded by the security agencies for upcoming election.

The commission discussed the matter and sent a letter to the finance ministry after security officials complained at a meeting of the election security committee that it would be difficult to hold the election with the resources used in the previus election five years ago.

According to Election Commission sources, a few days ago, at a meeting of the Central Election Security Committee, security officials complained that they did not have even the basic resources.

The number of vehicles purchased during the election five years ago has gone down.Some of the vehicles that were in operation at that time are now in a state of disrepair. The security officials had warned that there would be a sudden security risk in the coming days and vehicles would be essential in such a situation even though there are no major security challenges in the current election.

During the election, there will be a three-tier security fence around the polling station. Myadi and Nepal Police teams will be deployed in the first circle of the polling station. The second siege will be guarded by the armed police. Nepal Army will patrol outside the polling station.

The security personnel had briefed the commission officials about the resources saying that the election was being prepared in such a way that the security cordon would be affected as the number of temporary police personnel has not increased this time as compared to the previous time. After that, the team of the Election Commission concluded that there is a lack of resources and that it should be addressed in one way or another.

Comparing to the previous election,this time around 4 million voters have been added. But the number of temporary police is the same as five years ago. Due to the phased election at that time, it was easy to manage the security personnel by mobilizing them from one state to another. But this time it is not possible as the election will be held in one phase.

Election Commission officials also raised the issue during a meeting with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Wednesday. According to a commissioner, the main question is about the vehicles that security personnel need to move around. After that, the commission decided to instruct the Ministry of Finance to ‘prevent the security forces from running out of vehicles and provide resources’.

According to sources, the commission had drawn attention to the lack of resources so that the election security would not be questioned. In response, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said, “We will not allow shortage of vehicles but will manage them on rent or in coordination with other government agencies as we do not have the capacity to buy vehicles in the current crisis.”