Chitwan, May 25:

Elections were held today to elect new office bearers of the Nepal Students Union (NSU) in its ongoing 10th general convention.

Polling began at 2:00 pm. Of the total of 1,611 voters, 1,559 cast their votes today.

Although 15 persons had filed their candidacy for the post of president of the student body, nine of them withdrew from the race.

Ranjit Karna, Badri Aryal, Basudev Koirala, Tek Raj Poudel and Modin Sitaula withdrew their names this morning. The names of Sirjana Adhikari, Padam Raj Pant, Kshitiz Bhandari and Dipak Aryal, who decided to pull out of the race after the deadline set by the NSU’s election body expired, were dropped from the ballot papers prior to voting.

Laxman Dhakal, Devendra Poudel, Pradip Poudel, Bikas Koirala, Badri Pandey and Sagar Khanal are now in the fray.

A total of 170 candidates had filed their candidacy for 27 other positions. The number, however, came down to 139 today.

Although Narayan Koirala was elected the member of the foreign affairs department after another candidate vying for the post withdrew his name, the election bodyhas not yet confirmed it.

Vote counting will be over tomorrow evening, election officer Gopal Krishna Ghimire said.