Very few voters have turned up across the country to cast their ballots for municipal elections on Wednesday.

A local resident submitting his vote at Koteshwor during the Municipal Elections being held countrywide, Wednesday, Feb 08 06. nepalnews.com/rr

According to the Election Commission, by 12:00 p. m. today, only 10 percent of the voters had cast their votes in the eastern town of Biratnagar.

In Dhanusha only 3,481 or nearly 8 percent of the voters had cast their votes by noon. Similarly, in the western town of Dailekh, only 12 percent of the voters had cast their votes.

In Malangawa municipality in Sarlahi district, voter turn out was over 35 percent by 12:00 p. m. today.

Spokesman of the EC, Tejmuni Bajracharya, told Nepalnews that situation had not been normal for voting in eastern town of Dhankuta and mid-western district of Dang for polling today. The rebels had mounted attacks at Dhankuta municipality on Tuesday night.

Visit to various polling centers in Kathmandu and Madhyapur Thimi by Nepalnews correspondents revealed that very few voters had turned out to cast their votes.

Polling officer at the Cooperatives Training Center polling booth in Kathmandu said only 203 out of 1847 voters had cast their votes by 1:00 p. m. on Wednesday.

“Unlike in the past, voters turn out this time is quite low,” he said.

At the polling center at Madhyapur Thimi municipality office, Anita—a young woman—was waiting for her friends to go for voting. “This is the first time that I am going to cast my votes,” she told us as security personnel were watching from close quarters.

There was heavy security at the polling center and security personnel were also stationed at nearby houses of local people.

Polling Officer Bed Prasad Pandey said out of 1,500 voters, only 173 had cast their votes at the center by 12:15 p. m.

He said polling was taking place for the post of Mayor only as other candidates for the Madhyapur Thimi municipality had been elected unopposed.

In the nearby Bhaktapur municipality, there was no indication of elections. Most of the seats for the municipality remained vacant while a lady has been elected unopposed to the post of mayor. “We haven’t been able to see or meet her after she was declared elected to the post,” a Bhaktapur resident told us.

Outside the polling center at Durbar high school in Kathmandu, people stopped to watch their names at the electoral roll then walked away.

Security personnel could be seen asking people if they were coming to vote.

Security has been beefed up. Army vans run frequently in streets while others vehicles are banned for today.

Altogether 1.4 million voters are eligible to cast their votes during elections being held in 36 municipalities of 28 districts. No elections are taking place in the rest 22 municipalities.

There are 40,000 election centres throughout the country and 7,698 employees have been mobilised for the purpose, according to EC.

According to the EC, the polls will elect 34 mayors, 25 deputy-mayors, 197 Ward chairpersons, 291 Ward members and 71 women Ward members.