The Nepali Congress election committee has rejected media reports claiming ballot boxes went missing from Madhesh Province during the party’s 15th general convention, calling the reports misleading. Committee coordinator Prem Bahadur Khadka said the ballot boxes used in the election were identified by numbers rather than province names and had been marked accordingly.
Committee disputes reports of missing ballot boxes
The committee said it was seriously concerned after media outlets published reports alleging that ballot boxes from Madhesh Province had gone missing during the convention. Its clarification disputes the central claim in those reports: according to Khadka, the boxes were not labelled with the names of provinces, so identifying them as Madhesh ballot boxes on that basis would be inaccurate.
Khadka said the boxes were distinguished by numbers and that the boxes used in the election were marked accordingly. The committee’s explanation therefore focuses on the way the ballot boxes were identified, rather than on an account of a box being lost. It has described the reports as misleading and rejected the suggestion that ballot boxes designated for Madhesh had disappeared.
The committee’s response was issued after the reports appeared in the media. It said the coverage had prompted serious concern, but the information made public in its clarification was limited to how the boxes were marked and identified. The committee did not provide further details in the statement described in the report about the specific reports, the number of boxes involved, or any separate investigation.
Ballot boxes were identified by number
The distinction between provincial labels and numbered identification is central to the committee’s response. Khadka said the ballot boxes did not carry province names. Instead, they were assigned numbers, and the boxes used during the election bore the corresponding markings. The committee presented this system as the reason claims specifically identifying missing boxes as belonging to Madhesh were misleading.
The clarification does not describe a province-name label being removed, nor does it say that a box was located after going missing. Rather, it challenges the premise that boxes could be identified as belonging to a particular province by reading a province name on them. The committee’s stated position is that the boxes were numbered and marked for use in the election.
That distinction matters to the committee’s denial because the reports characterized the alleged missing boxes by province, while Khadka said the boxes themselves were not labelled in that way. The statement does not provide additional information about how the numbering system worked or how individual boxes were allocated. It says only that numbers were used and that the boxes were marked accordingly.
Committee raises concern over media coverage
By describing the reports as misleading, the election committee has publicly challenged the way the ballot-box issue was presented. Its expression of serious concern indicates that it regarded the reports as significant, but the explanation provided by Khadka centers on the identification method. No further response from the media outlets that published the reports is included in the available account.
The committee’s clarification also does not supply a detailed chronology of the election process or offer information about other aspects of the party’s 15th general convention. The focus of the statement is narrow: reports of missing ballot boxes associated with Madhesh Province, the absence of province names on the boxes, and their identification by number.
For now, the committee’s account is that the ballot boxes were numbered and marked for use, and that reports describing boxes from Madhesh as missing were misleading. The clarification does not provide further operational details beyond that explanation. The committee’s response was reported by Rato Pati.
