Nepal polls Nepali Congress-led coalition leads in counting

By Shirish B Pradhan
(Eds: Updating with fresh details, tally)
    Kathmandu, Nov 24 (PTI) Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's Nepali Congress-led ruling coalition was on Thursday inching towards winning Nepal's parliamentary elections as the five-party alliance has bagged 52 seats out of the 90 declared so far.
    In the 275-member House of Representatives, 165 will be elected through direct voting, while the remaining 110 will be elected through a proportional electoral system.
    Till now, the Nepali Congress (NC) has won 32 seats and is leading in 21 others.
    The CPN-Maoist Centre has bagged 9 seats, CPN-Unified Socialist 7 and Rastriya Janamorcha and Lokatantrik Samajwadi Party two each. They all are part of the ruling coalition.
    CPN-Maoist Centre chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' was elected from Gorkha-2 constituency, securing 26,103 votes. He defeated Kavindra Burlakoti from Rastriya Swatantra Party, who secured 12,637 votes.
    Former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, the chairman of CPN-Unified Socialist, was elected from Rautahat-1 constituency. He secured 33,522 votes against his nearest rival Ajaya Gupta from CPN-UML, who received 26,522 votes.
    The Maoist Centre and CPN-Unified Socialist have been leading in 8 and 3 seats respectively.
    The main Opposition CPN-UML led by former premier K P Sharma Oli has won 20 seats and is leading in 27 others.
    The CPN-UML partners - the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Janata Samajwadi Party - have won four and two seats respectively. Rastriya Prajatantra Party is leading in three seats.
    The newly-formed Rastriya Swatantra Party has won seven seats and is leading in one.  
    Nagarik Unmukti Party, Janmat Party, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party and independent candidates have secured one seat each.
    If the trend continue, the NC-led alliance will be in a position to form a coalition government.
    However, the CPN-UML has secured the highest number of votes under the proportionate voting system, which gives it an advantage.
    Under the proportionate system, the CPN-UML has so far received 3,65,505 votes whereas the NC and Maoist Centre received 3,37,328 and 1,61,069 votes respectively.
    In Nepal's capital city Kathmandu, the CPN-UML could bag just one seat, down from the six it had bagged in 2017.
    Out of the 10 seats in the district, the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has secured five and Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) bagged four.
    Rajendra Lingden, president of Rastriya Prajatantra Party has been elected to HoR from Jhapa-3 constituency securing 40,648 votes. He defeated Nepali Congress candidate Krishna Sitaula, who secured 37,372 votes.
    Ravi Lamichhane of newly formed RSP has been elected from Chitwan-2 securing 49,246 votes. He defeated Nepali Congress leader Umesh Shrestha, who secured 14,983 votes.
    Elections to the House of Representatives (HoR) and seven provincial assemblies were held on Sunday. The counting of votes started on Monday. PTI SBP NSA ZH AKJ ZH
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)