The Election Commission today allowed 29 more local observers to monitor the upcoming national election.

In a statement released in the evening, the EC said that these observers will get registration for five years.

Among the new local observers, two organisations -- Election Monitoring Forum (EMF) and Saarc Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) – have faced criticism for bringing in some inexperienced foreign nationals as observers in the last national election.

EC Additional Secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath said that the EMF and SHRF got approval as they fulfilled all criteria set by the EC.

Applications of these two organisations were rejected in the first phase. At that time, the EC approved 67 local observers.

With the new approvals, the total number of registered local observers now stands at 96.

In the 2018 election, 118 local observers got registration.