Kathmandu, August 14

Despite clashes during the ongoing 11th national general convention of the Nepali Congress-aligned Nepal Student Union, coordinator of NC directive committee Prakash Sharan Mahat today said it would hold the election for the leadership of the student union at any cost on Tuesday.

Speaking at a programme here today, Mahat said, “This is not the time to level accusations against each other but to stand united to hold the election on the scheduled date.” He also appealed to all concerned to help make the convention successful.

Election for the new central committee of NSU had become uncertain after a faction backed by party’s senior leader Ramchandra Paudel claimed that the voter list was tampered with by another faction.

Tension ran high at the NC party office in Sanepa on the eve of nomination of candidates earlier today after around a dozen NSU cadres close to Paudel and some security personnel were injured in a clash. The cadres had demanded correction in the voter list.

Following the clash, security presence was stepped up and NSU cadres were not allowed to enter the party office. The election committee had made public the voter list yesterday.

Earlier today, seven leaders of the union, had issued a statement urging the election committee to remove fake names on the voter list and publish the corrected list at the earliest. They had warned of a protest if the list was not corrected. Manoj Mani Acharya, Padam Raj Panta, Nilakantha Rijal, Deepak Bhattarai, Binita Adhikari, Ananda Raj Tripathi and Kshitij Bhandari had signed the statement.

They claimed that around 300 names were randomly added to the list by leaders backed by party president Sher Bahadur Deuba.

The five-member directive committee formed by the NC was also divided on the issue. Two members of the panel – Govinda Bhattarai and Guru Raj Ghimire – also issued a statement today and demanded that the polling process be resumed only after correcting the voter list.

The three-day 11th general convention of NSU had kicked off on August 7 after nine years.

The NC had formed a directive committee headed by Central Working Committee member Mahat in a bid to solve disputes over the selection of convention representatives.

Nominations deferred

KATHMANDU: The Election Committee on Sunday deferred the timetable set for filing nominations for various positions of Nepal Student Union.

Earlier, the committee had decided to file nominations from 3:00 to 6:00 pm on Sunday. As per the new schedule, candidates can file their nominations from 8:00 to 11:00 am on Monday, according to committee coordinator Bharat Prasad Kharel.

The final list of candidates will be finalised by 6:00 pm on Monday. Similarly, election for various NSU posts will be held on August 16 from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. Kharel stated that vote counting will begin immediately.

Filing of nominations and voting are scheduled to be held at the Nepali Congress’ office in Sanepa.