Foreign Ministry directs to halt NRNA election poll

The election procedures of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA)’s International Coordination Council and the National Coordination Council have been halt following the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' directives. The Ministry sought the postponement of the election procedures acting on complaints about issues concerning election representatives in several countries. The Ministry instructs for the halting of poll procedures until the execution of investigations into the complaint. With the Ministry’s response, the NRNA 10th General Convention is scheduled to hold on October 23-25 has been uncertain.

Three NRNA members had lodged complaints at the Ministry claiming that the recommendations of representatives for the general convention were in violation of the NRNA statute. A monitoring committee has been constituted under the coordination of Joint Secretary Bharat Kumar Regmi, Chief of Policy Planning, Development Diplomacy and Overseas Nepalese Affairs Division, MoFA to look into the matter. The committee comprises representatives from the Ministry of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology as its members. Through a letter signed by Joint Secretary Regmi, the Ministry has urged the NRNA to wait until the committee submits its report before proceeding towards the elections of the ICC and NCC. The letter insists on ensuring free, impartial, and reliable elections, highlighting the need of addressing such representatives’ selection issues before the election.

The NRNA is, however, not happy with the official notice for halting the election procedures all of a sudden. NRNA Vice-Chair Rabina Thapa said it was sad that the organisation purely committed to the causes of social services was trying to be politicised. The NRNA officials had met on Sunday to discuss the matter and decided to talk to the Ministry about the issue. NRNA Association founder and patron Ram Pratap Thapa also believed that there were alternatives to sorting out the issues through talks and discussion within the organisaion and it was wrong to seek the Ministry's intervention in the election procedures. “It is a wrong practice,” he described.