Lalitpur, August 17

Election for the new central committee of the Nepali Congress-aligned Nepal Student Union began on the 11th day of its national general convention in NC headquaters Sanepa today.

Election committee led by President of Democratic Lawyers Association Bharat Prasad Kharel said the voting began from 12:30 pm. He said voters who arrived at the election venue till 10:00 pm would be allowed to cast their votes.

“Some of the candidates filed candidacies for two posts. Therefore, we had to find them out and prepare a final list of candidates. Voting was delayed also because we had to put the names of candidates in the electronic voting machine,” he said.

Earlier, the voting was scheduled to take place from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.

He informed that a total of 685 NSU cadres filed their candidacies for 129 posts, while a total of 3,852 convention representatives voted in the election.

After the dispute over selection of convention representatives, party leaders, especially NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and senior leader Ramchandra Paudel had decided to field candidates by making two panels.

Nain Singh Mahar are contesting for the post of NSU president and Saroj Thapa and Kundan Raj Kafle for general secretary from the Deuba panel. Similarly, Manoj Mani Acharya is contesting for president and Deepak Bhattarai and Himal Dutta Shrestha for general secretary from the Paudel panel.

Altogether seven candidates backed by various leaders in NC central committee have filed their candidacies for the post of NSU president.

Kharel said 32 electronic voting machines were used for the election of president, vice president, general secretary, treasurer and central committee members (open competition), while ballot papers have also been used for election of NSU leadership in various universities such as Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu University, Purbanchal University, Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training and their constituent campuses.

It took a voter around 20 minutes to cast votes for candidates of various posts.

“Security was tightened for the voting and every voter was strictly checked before being sent to cast his votes,” he added.