KATHMANDU: Youth leader Pradeep Paudel has been maintaining the lead as 100 votes were counted for the 25 Nepali Congress Central Working Committee members under the open category. According to the party's Election Committee, the following contenders are in the top 25 list so far:

1. Pradeep Paudel: 66
2. Prakash Man Singh: 61
3. Shekhar Koirala: 61
4. Khum Bahadur Khadka: 60
5. Bimalendra Nidhi: 58
6. Mahesh Acharya: 57
7. Purna Bahadur Khadka: 56
8. Bal Krishna Khand: 55
9. Minendra Rijal: 56
10. Sujata Koirala: 53
11. Ramesh Lekhak: 51
12. Pradeep Giri: 51
13. Kul Bahadur Gurung: 50
14. Chandra Bhandari: 50
15. Dhan Raj Gurung: 50
16. Narayan Khadka: 50
17. Shankar Bhandari: 50
18. Ram Sharan Mahat: 49
19. Prakash Sharan Mahat: 49
20. Bal Bahadur KC: 48
21. Badri Pandey: 46
22. NP Saud: 46
23. Jip Chhiring Lama: 46
24. Gyanendra Bahadur Karki: 44
25. Udaya Shamsher Rana: 44

Meanwhile, the Committee is planning to halt the vote counting at 7 pm for today. It would resume on Thursday morning. The Committee chief Radheshyam Adhikari also said votes for CWC members under the Muslim, Dalit open and Dalit women categories would also be counted tomorrow. Singh, Paudel leading in Nepali Congress CWC vote count KATHMANDU: While Nepali Congress Election Committee is counting votes for the new 25 Central Working Committee members under the open category, the outgoing General Secretary Prakash Man Singh and youth leader Pradeep Paudel are leading. Till the count of 50 ballot papers, both Singh and Paudel have garnered 36 votes each. The next 23 in the top 25 list so far are as follows:

1. Sujata Koirala: 34
2. Shekhar Koirala: 32
3. Mahesh Acharya: 32
4. Khum Bahadur Khadka: 29
5. Minendra Rijal: 29
6. Bimalendra Nidhi: 29
7. Ram Sharan Mahat: 28
8. Narayan Khadka: 28
9. Bal Krishna Khand: 28
10. Dhan Raj Gurung: 27
11. Chandra Bhandari: 25
12. Prakash Sharan Mahat: 25
13. Badri Pandey: 25
14. Bal Bahadur KC: 25
15. Udaya Shumsher Rana: 25
16. Purna Bahadur Khadka: 24
17. Jip Chhiring Sherpa: 22
18. Govinda Raj Pokharel: 22
19. NP Saud: 22
20. Bishwa Prakash Sharma: 21
21. Shankar Bhandari: 21
22. Kul Bahadur Gurung: 21
23. Ashok Koirala: 20

Results of the open category are expected by Thursday evening only as the counting was a time-consuming process. As many as 90 candidates have been listed on a single ballot paper, among which a voter selects 25. That was why it took minutes to count a single ballot, according to Election Committee member Gopal Krishna Ghimire. He, however, maintained that the Committee was planning to divide the votes among more groups so as to reduce the time. It would take around a week to publish the final results of all categories, he added. Meanwhile, the Committee decided that if a voter selected more candidates than the seats (i.e. more than 25), his/her vote would be considered invalid.