CHITWAN: The Office of the Chief Returning Officer in Chitwan has announced that it would hold re-polling in Bharatpur-19 on August 4.

Chief Returning Officer Kabi Prasad Neupane said that his office fixed August 4 as the date for re-polling after he received a directive on Monday from the Election Commission to announce the date and time as soon as possible. “Re-polling date has been fixed after holding meeting with the security agencies and government staffers.”

Earlier, the EC had also directed the CRO to start vote counting once all ballot boxes of all polling centres arrived in the vote counting center.

A division bench of justices Om Prakash Mishra and Purushottam Bhandari on Sunday quashed the petition filed by Gunjaman BK, UML candidate for Bharatpur -19 and advocate Tulsiam Pandey against the EC's June 3 decision to conduct re-election.

The SC observed in its verdict that tearing of 90 ballot papers was an authorised capture of the vote counting station.

Two CPN-Maoist Centre cadres had torn as many as 90 ballot papers on midnight, May 29. UML Mayoral candidate Devi Gyawali was ahead of his nearest rival Renu Dahal, daughter of CPN-MC Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.