Itahari, April 14:

Cadres of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party today staged a chakkajam here alleging foul play in vote counting of Constituency No 2 of the district.

RPP activists kept the Jhumka-Ekamba road section of the East-West Highway in Sunsari blocked throughout the day. Agitating RPP cadres alleged that the district election office did not heed their complaint of foul play in vote counting and that it was also not coming clear as to what action it would take.

Dozens of passenger vehicles got stranded at Jhumka and Pakli of Sunsari. RPP cadres burnt tyres at various places on the road and shut down part of Jhumka bazaar. RPP candidate from Constituency No 2 Narendra Chaudhari demanded that the counting be annulled and fresh election be held. He alleged that there was a conspiracy to get him defeated. “One of the ballot boxes was missing, and many of the boxes’ seal were broken. Until everything is made transparent, we will not allow counting to proceed,” said Chaudhari.

According to the chief election office of the constituency, RPP’s complaint has been forwarded to the Election Commission and the commission directed it proceed with the counting. The office tried to resume the counting today but RPP protest put it on hold again. On April 11, the district RPP unit had locked the counting centre in Bhagwati Secondary School. Yesterday, an all-party meeting was held to settle the issue but the RPP launched a fresh protest. RPP cadres said their blockade and demonstrations would continue until the issue was settled.

Meanwhile, the CPN-UML district unit claimed that UML’s victory in the constituency was certain and that was why Maoists and RPP cadres had connived to create hassles in vote counting. The UML had been leading the count by 2,000 votes while Maoists were trailing behind when the count was halted.