Rupandehi, April 18:

Independent candidate from Rupandehi district’s Constituency No 1, Keshav Yadav, has set a record for getting the least number of votes in the April 10 Constituent Assembly election. Yadav netted one vote. Whose? It is not clear yet.

Yagyajit Shah, elected MP in the election eight years ago from Rupandehi, after he quit Nepali Congress and contested as a Nepal Sadbhawana Party candidate mustered only 32 votes as an independent in Rupandehi’s Constituency No 7. Mohammed Wakil of the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum won in Constituency No 7. “NSP (Anandidevi) candidate Shyam Sundar Gupta netted 4,059 votes while Sadbhawana Party (Mahato) candidate Manmohan Chaudhari got 3,789 votes,” said District Election Office.

In Rupandehi’s Constituency No 1, another independent candidate Krishna Mohan Nishad secured four votes. In Constituency No 2 Sunil Kumar Kunwar got 21 votes.

In Rupandehi-3, among the four independent candidates Saraswati Baral got the most votes - 26 - while Dharma Raj Neupane secured the least number - 8. In Constituency No 4, third gender independent candidate Sant Bahadur Pun Magar netted only 21 votes. Incidentally, Pun scored the highest among the six independents from this Constituency.

The district election office said more than 50 political leaders from all over the district ran as independents. Of them, Ramu Yadav in Rupandehi’s Constituency No 2 has the highest tally of 1,316 votes.

Meanwhile a report from Khotang stated that CPN-Maoist is ahead in the proportional representation system of election in hilly districts Khotang, Okhaldhunga and Solukhumbu of Sagarmatha zone.

In Khotang-1, CPN-Maoist came first with 16,817 votes. CPN-UML got 9,143 votes while Nepali Congress secured 8,942 votes. CPN-Maoist scored 17,188 votes in Khotang-2. CPN-UML got 10,497 votes while NC got 9,966 votes.

In Okhaldhunga-1, CPN-Maoist got 10,512 votes. NC got 9,499 while CPN-UML got 8,538. CPN-Maoist got 10,580 votes in Okhaldhunga-2, . NC got 9,730 while CPN-UML got 8,476.

In Solukhumbu’s sole Constituency, CPN-Maoist got 15,327 votes while NC and CPN-UML got 10,512 and 8,560 votes, respectively.