RAUTAHAT, MARCH 5

Intra-party rift has put off the Nepali Congress' 14th Rautahat District Conference indefinitely.

Voting was scheduled to elect 97 members of the NC district committee, including the district president at 9:00am today. Voters had lined up at Juddha Secondary School from early morning. But voting did not start till 2:00pm.

The election officer put off the voting indefinitely after the two sides disputed over ID card to cast their ballot. One side demanded that they be allowed to vote on the basis of citizenship certificate, while the other side said voters' ID card should be mandatory to cast vote.

Ram Chandra Giri, who had filed his candidacy for the post of secretary, charged that district party president's candidate from Sunil Yadav's group had not distributed voter's ID cards in Constituency 3 of the district to make them cast their ballots on his side unilaterally.

Rajpur Municipality Mayor Sekh Shakil charged that the voting was postponed due to the establishment side's monopoly.

'The election law has it that voters have to carry voter's ID card to cast ballot. Not distributing the ID cards is undemocratic and intended to steal the election result,' Shakil added.

Rautahat NC's former district president and Madhes Pradhes President Krishna Prasad Yadav said that a discussion was under way to hold the election that had been halted due to technical weakness.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 6, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.