KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 22
Nepali Congress leaders Gagan Kumar Thapa and Prakash Man Singh retained their parliamentary seats while their party was leading in more parliamentary constituencies than any other party till 8:00pm today.
The NC was ahead in 48 parliamentary first-past-the-post constituencies, the CPN-UML in 43, the CPN-Maoist Centre in 16, the Rastriya Swatantra Party in 10, the CPN (Unified Socialist) in eight, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party in five, the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal in four, the Nagarik Unmukti Party in three, Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal in two, and others in 10. Counting for 13 seats has yet to begin.
Earlier, NC General Secretary Thapa, who contested the House of Representatives elections from Kathmandu-4, won the seat by defeating his nearest rival from the UML, Rajan Bhattarai. Thapa secured 21,302 votes, whereas Bhattarai got 13,855 votes. This is the third consecutive win for Thapa from the same constituency.
The NC candidate from Kathmandu-1, Prakash Man Singh, also won the seat, defeating Rastriya Prajatantra Party candidate Rabindra Mishra by a margin of 132 votes. Singh secured 7,143 votes against Mishra's 7,011 votes. Singh had defeated Mishra on the same seat in the last general elections as well.
Other parliamentary FPTP seat winners include CPN UML candidate from Kathmandu-9 Krishna Gopal Shrestha. He won with 11,956 votes. His nearest rival, Kalpana Dhamala of CPN-Maoist Centre, received 6,402 votes.
Shrestha had won the HoR election from the same constituency in the 2017 general election as well.
Nagarik Unmukti Party candidate from Kailali-3, Gangaram Chaudhary, has also won the parliamentary seat. He secured 23,120 votes against his nearest rival from the CPN- MC, Krishna Kumar Chaudhary. Chaudhary got 17,749 votes.
CPN (US) leader Jhalanath Khanal and JSP-N Chair Upendra Yadav are among the prominent leaders who were trailing in their constituencies.
Janmat Party Chair CK Raut, who had secured 19,120 votes, was way ahead than his nearest rival Upendra Yadav in Saptar-2. Yadav had secured only 9,637 votes. Khanal, meanwhile, was trailing CPN- UML's Mahesh Basnet. Until 8:00pm, Basnet had secured 8,056 votes and was leading Khanal by 1,207 votes.
Assistant Spokesperson for the Election Commission Surya Prasad Aryal said counting in 152 parliamentary FPTP was on, but counting in the remaining constituencies had not yet started as parties had alleged rigging. He said some parties had demanded repoll at some places and the EC was evaluating the merits of their claims. The EC said that it was yet to bring ballot boxes from Humla and Dolpa districts to districts' headquarters.
Dolakha-1, Syangja-2, Gulmi-1, Dolpa-1, Mugu-1, Humla-1, Surkhet-1, and Bajura-1 are among the constituencies where counting of votes has not yet begun.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 23, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
