Pokhara, May 21

All the forces contesting polls in Pokhara-Lekhnath Metropolitan City other than CPN-UML boycotted vote counting today, protesting the decision of the Election Commission to go ahead with counting even though vote stamp was found to be bigger in ballot papers that had voted for the CPN-UML.

Vote counting was halted on Saturday afternoon but restarted today amid protest from NC and others in the fray.

Following the dispute, an all-party meeting was held and the central office of the Election Commission was also informed about the problem.

The commission’s central office instructed election officials to continue with counting this evening, as there was no ground to halt it only because of the size of the stamp.

Even after Kaski’s Chief Election Officer Nagendra Lal Karna informed all the party representatives about the instruction, no party representative other than the UML’s agreed to resume counting.

“We vacated the counting venue, as there was no meaning in staying there to count  fake votes,” said Nepali Congress Kaski Secretary Sudip Mohan Bhattarai.

A total of 126,000 votes were cast in the metropolis. Of the 33 wards of the metropolitan city, counting in Wards No 1 to 15 was completed yesterday.

Chief Election Officer  Nagendra Lal Karna could not be contacted even after repeated attempts.