10 candidates vying for 7 posts in National Assembly from Province 4

POKHARA: 10 out of 12 candidates are vying for seven posts in tomorrow's election of members to the National Assembly from Province 4.

Prakash Panth was elected unopposed from disable category after Ram Bahadur Thapa's nomination was cancelled citing non-renewal of his Disability ID Card, according to the Information Officer at Pokhara Regional Election Office, Tej Bahadur Gurung.

He further informed that other candidates will vie for three open and women category posts each and one for Dalit category in tomorrow's election.

Gurung further said eight members from Province 4 will be elected to National Assembly based on the Single Transferable Voting System.

All the preparations for tomorrow's election have been completed, which will be held on the premises of Pardi-based Civil Service Commission Regional Office, said Election Officer Dipendra Adhikari. "Election will commence after election related items are submitted at the Election Officer's Office," Adhikari shared.

He further said, two voting centres have been managed, one for 170 Chief and Vice-Chief of local levels and other for 60 members of State Assembly. Gangalal Subedi and Jagannath Paudel have been assigned as election officers in these two polling centres.

Rajiv Gurung aka Deepak Manage, elected as member of State Assembly from Manang (B), was listed in voters' name list despite failing to attend the oath taking ceremony.

Big parties including the Left Alliance, Nepali Congress and Rastriya Janamorcha have fielded 5, 4 and 4 candidates respectively. Left Alliance common candidates Ganesh Prasad Timilsina (Parbat) of UML and Dinnath Sharma (Baglung) of Maoist Centre filed their nominations in open category.

Deepa Gurung (Lamjung) and Shanti Adhikari (Baglung) of UML filed their candidacy in women category and Khim Bahadur BK (Syanja) of Maoist Centre in Dalit category.

Nepali Congress filed Surendra Raj Pandey (Gorkha) in open category, Binda Devi Rana Magar (Kaski) in women category, Prakash Panta (Tanahu) in disable category and Jeet Bahadur Nepali (Parbat) in Dalit category.

Likewise, Rastriya Janamorcha filed Krishna Adhikari and Mina Pun both of Baglung in open and women category respectively.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has said all preparations for the election have been completed in all the provinces and voting will take place from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm tomorrow.