Election Commission fines Setopati for publishing election analysis

The Election Commission (EC) has fined online news portal Setopati NRs 100,000 for violating the Election Code of Conduct by publishing election analysis during the ongoing polls.

In a decision taken on Monday, the EC said Setopati had breached provisions of the code, including Clause 4 and parts of Clause 25 (1), which regulate election-related communication and reporting during the electoral period.

The EC has instructed the outlet to deposit the fine within 15 days.

Setopati had published a series of election analyses after reporting from 11 constituencies and speaking to more than 10,000 voters. In its first analysis of Chitwan–3, it projected that Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Sobita Gautam would win the constituency. 

After criticism from readers and media observers, the outlet revised the headline to “highly likely”, indicating a strong possibility of victory rather than certainty. The outlet describes the reports as field-based assessments of electoral dynamics rather than attempts to influence voting.

Before imposing the penalty, both the EC and the Press Council had sought clarifications from the outlet, which Setopati says it had submitted.

Amid the dispute, Setopati filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court on February 26, seeking to halt attempts to remove the published analyses and to prevent authorities from stopping further publication. The petition named the EC and the Press Council as respondents.

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The petition argues that citizens have a constitutional right to receive information about elections and that media organisations have both a duty and a constitutional right to disseminate such information.

In the writ, Setopati requested that the court issue an order preventing authorities from forcing the outlet to remove its published analyses or blocking those prepared for publication until the case is resolved.

Separately, advocate Abhas Regmi and others filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to stop Setopati from publishing election-related reports.

Hearing both petitions on March 3, a bench of justices Hari Prasad Phuyal and Nripadhwaj Niraula declined to issue an interim order, noting that the election’s silence period had already begun.

Setopati has maintained publicly and in court that media outlets should not be barred from reporting election-related information or publishing analysis in the name of the code of conduct. It argues that such restrictions undermine both press freedom and citizens’ access to information during elections.