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Nepal Samajbadi Party Chairman Baburam Bhattarai has announced that he will not be a candidate in the upcoming November 20 polls. He has written a letter in the name of Gorkha people and announced that he will not be a candidate this time. "I express my gratitude from the bottom of my heart to all the Gorkhali parents, brothers and sisters for giving me the opportunity to serve you by making me win in the Constituent Assembly and the House of Representatives elections of 2008, 2013 and 2017," he wrote, "I would like to inform that I will not be a candidate in the coming House of Representatives elections on November 20.” Full text Dear Gorkha, I express my heartfelt gratitude to all the Gorkhali parents, sisters and brothers for giving me the opportunity to serve you by making me win in the Constituent Assembly and the House of Representatives elections in 2008, 2013 and 2017. I would like to politely inform you all that I will not be a candidate in the next House of Representatives election on November 20. During my tenure, basic physical and social infrastructures have been built for the far-reaching development and prosperity of Gorkha, while some of the started projects are yet to be completed. Even though I am not in the parliament, I will continue to actively contribute to make historical Gorkha a model development center of the country by bringing production and employment-oriented plans and programs on the foundation of those infrastructures to complete the remaining projects. From 2008 until now, I have been visiting Gorkhas every month. I have had the opportunity to learn a lot from you. I will continue to be at your service in the days to come. Not fighting the election does not mean leaving politics! Some people may unknowingly think/say that. Those who are involved in politics for power say so. But right and good politics is a means of all-round progressive transformation of the society and serving the people/society. I believe in it and will continue on that path all my life. I will continue to work in party and public service. I want to assure all the Gorkhali people that in my place you will find the leadership of more capable and responsible people and the speed of development of Gorkha will gain more speed. I will be there with you. Best wishes for the upcoming Dashain, Tihar and all other festivals!

The parties have submitted a revised list on the closed list of candidates previously submitted to the Election Commission for the proportional representation system for the elections of the House of Representatives and the Provincial Assembly to be held on November 20. The commission had provided seven days for the parties to submit the revised list.  The EC also informed that if any candidate listed in the revised closed list wants to withdraw his/her name, he/she will have to submit an application on October 3 from 10 am to 12 pm, and on the same day from 1 pm to 3 pm, the relevant party will be informed about the withdrawal of candidacy.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) senior Vice-Chairman Rabindra Mishra has announced that he will contest the parliamentary election scheduled for November 20 from Kathmandu-1. He announced his candidacy in the presence of former RPP chairman Prakash Chandra Lohani, General Secretary Bhuwan Pathak and party spokesperson Mohan Shrestha among others at Thapagaun in Kathmandu on Friday. Party Chairman Rajendra Lingden, however, was not present in the program. Leader Mishra announced his candidacy less than a week after he was appointed as the senior vice-chairman by joining the RPP. He had contested the previous election to the House of Representatives from the same constituency. But, he was defeated by Nepali Congress leader Prakash Man Singh with a margin of 818 votes. Leader Singh accumulated 10, 936 votes while Mishra garnered 10, 118 votes. Mishra is the former Chairman of the Bibeksheel Sajha Party. He worked as the editor-in-chief of BBC Nepali Service and left the BBC in February 2017 to enter politics.    

Ahead of the federal and provincial elections, Media Action Nepal (MAN), a member and co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN), is offering a series of intensive training and mentorship sessions on fair media coverage of elections to journalists in all provinces of Nepal. The first media sensitization workshop was organized in Hetauda of Bagmati Province on Wednesday with 25 participants from Hetauda and Chitwan districts. Out of which 12 participants were girls/women. The participants represented eight newspapers, five television channels, six online news portals and six radio stations. Supported by the Canada Fund for Local Initiative (CFLI), the training, mentorship and fellowship seek to equip journalists on fair media coverage, reporting elections, countering disinformation and hate speech, and promoting inclusive and diverse media content. The training workshop has three sessions and the topics of discussion cover professional standards and code of conduct for journalists, media’s approach to human rights and approaches to countering hate speech and promoting inclusive media content. The training sessions were facilitated by Laxman Datt Pant, Global Journalism Trainer and Chairperson of Media Action Nepal and the Co-Chair of MFC-CN, Shree Adhikari, Human Rights Expert and Priyanka Jha, Vice-Chairperson of Media Action Nepal. Pant interacted with the participants focusing on standards for fair media coverage of elections, elections and media professionalism, adherence to ethics and code of conduct and understanding diversity and media’s role in elections. He also focused on election’s code of conduct for journalists published by the Election Commission Nepal (ECN) that is being implemented from 28th September, 2022 until the federal and provincial elections scheduled for November 20, 2022. Adhikari focused on areas of human rights and election-provision and standards, constitution of Nepal, stages of reporting in election, media’s approach to human rights reporting. He discussed the laws related to election and the laws that need to be considered while reporting elections. His discussion also included the importance of fair media coverage during three phases of election i.e before election, during election and after election. Jha shared with the participants about understanding elections related misinformation/disinformation and hate speech, issues for media advocacy and promoting inclusive media content. She focused on the importance of the role and responsibilities of journalists and media during the election. Meantime, Srijana Nepal, a participant from Radio Thaha Sanchar in Makawanpur shared, "As the training was right before the election, it was helpful to us to learn about the roles the media should play before, during and after election." Similarly, Shanta Adhikari, a journalist working with Chitwan Patra commented, "Receiving the training before the election provided us an understanding on subjects that need to be focused during election like the political parties and candidates, the issues and the voting process." Ganesh Prasad Ghimire, Secretary of Media Action Nepal highlighted the objectives of the workshop, while Laxman Datt Pant, Chairperson of Media Action Nepal introduced the participants with the work of Media Action Nepal and expressed his appreciation to CFLI for supporting the election reporting training workshops and mentorship program.