Election commission officials said nominations for three fourth of the above 4,000 municipal positions across the country have been registered for the upcoming town elections. They said the figure could go up by Friday because they were yet to receive information from several districts. Spokesman of the Election Commission Tej Muni Bajaracharya told us Thursday night that the positions of mayor had drawn the maximum number of candidates ? 236 for 58 municipalities across the country. He said for the 58 positions of deputy mayor nearly 200 nominations had been registered. The least number of nominations have been registered for the positions of ward members. Critics including opposition parties have argued that the turnout for the registration of the election candidates was quite low. The parties have intensified their campaign to boycott the polls reasoning that the royal regime would use the elections to legitimize itself. They had coincided their call for Nepal bandh on the same day. The nation wide shutdown strike on Thursday did affect the candidate nomination registration in different parts of the country. Normal life came to standstill as vehicles stayed off the road and most of the market places, schools, colleges and offices remained closed. We got complaints from some of the wannabe candidates that they could not get their names registered because of the bandh, Bajracharya said. But the main hindrance was the psychology of fear. Maoist rebels have warned that they would disrupt polls and take action against its candidates and supporters. They have already killed a Nepal Sadbhavana Party candidate for the position of Mayor in Janakpur municipality. The government however has maintained that it would hold the municipal elections.