Nepalgunj, July 14:

Election for various positions in the NC(D)-affiliated Nepal students’ Union - Democratic (NSU-D) began here today. Some 106 candidates have filed their names for positions in the 55-member working committee of the NSU-D. The list of candidates had not been made public even till late in the evening.

The parent party, NC-D, tried to get its student union members to arrive at a consensus on choosing the union leadership, but in vain.

A central member of the NC-D, Purna Bahadur Khadka, told this daily: “The party is not meddling with the functioning of the students’ union. The union members are free to choose their leaders.”

The new statute of the union has it that the new central committee will have 55 members. Earlier, the committee used to have 35 members.

Sitting vice-chairman Nrip Bista and Ramkrishna Chitrakar and sitting joint general secretary Kalyan Gurung are contesting for the presidency of the students’ body.

Pratima Gautam, Umesh Yadav, Saroj Kumar Thapa, Santosh Bhatt and Ram Krishna Dhungana are contesting for the post of general secretary.

Some 24 contenders are vying for the post of joint general secretary, while 12 contenders are fighting for the posts of regional vice-chairpersons.

The NSU-D will have five regional vice-chairpersons.

Sixty-two candidates have filed their candidacies for the post of central members, the election commission said. The president of the NSU-D can nominate 10 central members.

Top Bahadur Rawat has been elected as joint secretary for the mid-west, while Prem Prakash Shahi (Dailekh) has been elected as a member.