Nepal polls: PM Deuba wins from Dadeldhura; Nepali Congress ahead in election tally

Kathmandu, Nov. 23 (PTI): Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was elected on Wednesday with a huge margin of votes for the House of Representatives for the seventh consecutive time, with his ruling Nepali Congress party leading in the election tally by winning 13 seats so far.

Elections to the House of Representatives (HoR) and seven provincial assemblies were held on Sunday. The counting of votes started on Monday.

Deuba secured 25,534 votes against his nearest rival Sagar Dhakal, an independent candidate in the Dadeldhura constituency in far west Nepal. Dhakal received just 1,302 votes. Deuba has never lost any parliamentary election in the five decades of his political career.

The 77-year-old Nepali Congress president Deuba is currently holding the post of Prime Minister for the fifth term.

Dhakal is a young engineer, who had a verbal squabble with Deuba during a public debate at a BBC’s Sajha Sawal programme five years ago, after which he decided to challenge Deuba saying that now youths should get a chance in politics and senior people like Deuba should retire.

The ruling Nepali Congress has so far bagged 13 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR) while it is leading in 54 other constituencies.

Its ally parties — CPN-Maoist and CPN-Unified Socialist, Lokatantraik Samajwadi Party — are leading in 17, 7 and 3 seats respectively.

The CPN-UML led by former prime minister K P Oli has so far bagged three seats and is leading in 45 constituencies. Its ally parties — the Rastriya Prajatantra Partyj and Janata Samajwadi Party — are leading in 5 seats each.

The newly formed Rastriya Swotantra Party has won three seats in the Kathmandu district.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party have bagged one seat each.

The CPN-UML has received the highest number of votes under the proportional electoral system with the party bagging 2,07,299 votes followed by the Nepali Congress with 1,83,352 votes. Rastriya Swotantra Party is in the third position with 95,598 votes while CPN-Maoist has received 86,433 votes. Similarly, the CPN Unified Socialist got 10,919 votes.

Out of 275 Members of Parliament, 165 will be elected through direct voting, while the remaining 110 will be elected through a proportional electoral system. Similarly, out of a total of 550 members of the seven provincial assemblies, 330 will be elected directly and 220 will be elected through the proportional method.