KATHMANDU, MAY 15
While candidates of the ruling alliance are leading in four of the six metropolis - Lalitpur, Biratnagar, Pokhara and Birgunj, in Kathmandu, Independent Candidate Balen Sah is leading, and in Bharatpur Metropolitan City, UML candidate Bijay Subedi is leading.
The ruling alliance had earlier forged poll alliance in six metropolitan and 11 sub-metropolitan cities.
As per the initial vote count, in Kathmandu, independent candidate for mayor, Balen Sah, continued to lead the race.
Until 8:00pm today, Shah had garnered 3,410 votes, leading the margin by more than double votes of UML candidate Keshav Sthaplit. Sthapit is trailing behind with 1,694 votes. NC candidate Srijana Singh has closed the gap with Sthapit with 1,620 votes.
In Lalitpur, NC candidate for mayor Chiribabu Maharjan, is leading with 877 votes. UML candidate Hari Krishna Byanjankar is trailing with 402 votes.
In Biratnagar, NC candidate for mayor Nagesh Koirala, the common candidate of the ruling alliance, is leading with 419 votes. UML candidate SagarThapa is trailing with 296 votes.
Independent candidate Umesh Kumar Yadav has garnered 111 votes.
In Bharatpur, UML candidate Bijay Subedi is leading with 2,549 votes. CPN-MC candidate Renu Dahal is trailing Subedi with 2,530 votes. Independent candidate Jagannath Paudel has bagged 830 votes.
In Pokhara, CPN (Unified Socialist) candidate Dhanraj Acharya, who is supported by the ruling alliance, is leading the race with 1,558 votes. UML candidate Krishna Thapa is trailing Acharya with 1,480 votes.
In Birgunj Municipality, Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal candidate for mayor Rajeshman Singh, who is supported by the ruling alliance, has bagged 2,832 votes. UML's Bijay Sarabagi has garnered 1,286 votes. Sarabagi who resigned as Mayor of Birgunj metropolis to contest the mayoral race for the second time, had defected from the JSP-N and joined the UML. RPP's Girish Giri has got only 86 votes.
As of the 8:00pm tally today, the UML had won the mayoral race in 15 rural municipalities followed by Nepali Congress 11, CPN-MC - 9 and CPN (Unified Socialist) - 2.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 16, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
