Around eighty thousand Tibetans in-exile get registered for voting

Dharamshala: The Tibetans have geared up for the general elections 2021, and till a total of 79,697 Tibetans have registered for the upcoming general elections. Tibetan Election Commission in Dharamshala says that out of the total 55683 Tibetan voters are from inside India while 24014 are registered from outside India.

The chief election commissioner Wangdu Tsering said, “As per the request from several Regional Commissions we have given an additional five-days period from 23rd to 28th of December 2020 for the registration. Several people are from remote areas and they were facing problems so keeping it in mind we have allowed the additional time for Registration. The whole world is badly affected with the  pandemic but in our case with the strong determination of regional election commissions and as well as from the public our works were smoothly functioning but still there were some kind of obstructions also..."

On the other hand, the candidates have started their campaigning. Their posters can be seen on walls around the hill town here. But this time people are avoiding face to face interaction. Most of the candidates are campaigning through social media.
Namgyal Dolkar, a candidate for member of Tibetan parliament in-exile says, "Our campaigning is going well considering the restraints that we are under because of the Chinese covid. We are trying to reach out to people online, through videos, through posters and the possibility of having face to face conversation with the people has come under lock but we are using every other means that we can..."

The first phase of general election for Sikyong(Tibetan PM in Exile) and members of the 17th Tibetan Parliament will be held on 3 January 2021 whereas the final election will be held on 11th April.