HoR polls: 8,197 votes invalid in Kathmandu
In the House of Representatives election held on March 5, Kathmandu, the district with the highest literacy rate, recorded 8,197 invalid votes.
Thakur Prasad Bhattarai, the District Election Officer in Kathmandu, reported that 1,226 votes were annulled in Kathmandu-10, which has 83,301 registered voters. Out of the 60,441 votes cast in this constituency, 59,215 were deemed valid.
In Constituency-9, a total of 933 votes were invalid, with 52,740 votes cast from a total of 78,495 voters, resulting in 51,807 valid votes.
In Constituency-8, 623 votes were invalid, with a total of 57,811 voters. From 54,794 votes cast, only 37,171 were valid. Constituency No. 7 saw 805 votes rejected, with 44,857 votes cast from a total of 68,685 voters, leading to 44,052 valid votes.
In Constituency-6, 811 votes were invalid, with 45,248 votes cast from a total of 67,759 voters, resulting in 44,437 valid votes, as per the District Election Office in Kathmandu.
Constituency-5 had 902 rejected votes, with 51,969 votes cast from a total of 78,114 voters, yielding 51,067 valid votes.
In Constituency-4, 862 votes were invalid, with 50,963 votes cast from a total of 76,251 voters, resulting in 50,101 valid votes.
Constituency-3 had 940 rejected votes, with 44,190 votes cast from a total of 64,479 voters, leading to 43,250 valid votes.
In Constituency-2, 1,095 votes were invalid, with 59,441 votes cast from a total of 88,708 voters, resulting in 58,346 valid votes.
Finally, in Constituency-1, 434 votes were invalid, with 32,314 votes cast from a total of 55,292 voters, yielding 31,880 valid votes.
The commission has declared that it will release information on Tuesday, following the tallying of all votes, concerning the overall count of invalid votes nationwide.
According to the most recent data, it is projected that three to four percent of the votes were invalid, commission's deputy spokesperson Kul Bahadur GC told Rastriya Samachar Samiti.
He also mentioned that by this evening, a total of 9,523,000 votes under the proportional system have been counted.
EC deactivating election code of conduct from midnight today
The Election Code of Conduct, 2082 BS, which was brought in force since January 18 for the elections to the National Assembly (NA) and House of Representatives (HoR), would be deactivated from midnight today, the Election Commission (EC) said.
EC Spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai stated that the EC took such a decision today.
The Election Code of Conduct was brought into implementation as per the Election Commission Act, 2073 BS and Election Code of Conduct, 2082 BS aimed at conducting the elections in a free, fair and fearless manner.
Issuing a statement today, the EC said that the election code of conduct would remain deactivated from midnight today.
Newly elected National Assembly members take oath
Newly elected National Assembly (NA) members took the oath of office and secrecy today.
NA Chairman Narayan Prasad Dahal administered the oath to 17 out of 18 NA members amidst a ceremony. They were elected on January 25 this year.
In the 59-seat NA, the members have six year terms. However, one-thirds of them get their terms expire each two years as per constitution.
The newly elected NA members taking oath today are Khamma Bahadur Khati, Gita Devkota, Chandra Bahadur KC, Jagat Timalsina, Dharmendra Paswan, Prem Prasad Dangal, Mahanth Thakur, Ranjit Karn, Ram Kumari Jhankri, Rekha Kumari Jha, Roshani Meche, Lalit Jung Shahi, Lila Kumari Bhandari, Basudev Ghimire, Samjhana Devkota, Sunil Bahadur Thapa and Somnath Portel.
Mina Singh Rakhal was absent on the occasion.
RSP leads PR vote count in HoR elections
The counting of votes cast under the proportional representation (PR) system for the House of Representatives (HoR) elections is underway.
As of 3 pm today, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which has so far won 124 seats, is also leading in the PR vote count by a very wide margin.
Out of a total 908,400 votes counted so far, the party has secured 4390,035 votes.
Similarly, the Nepali Congress (NC) has achieved 1470,796 while the CPN-UML garnered 1231,789 and the Nepali Communist Party got 656,941.
The Shram Sanskriti Party has collected 313,489 and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party achieved 294,355 votes.
As per the EC updates, the Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal secured 140,237 votes, the Rastriya Pariwartan Party 137,245, the Janamat Party 62,460 and the Rastriya Mukti Party Nepal, Janata Samajbadi Party and the Nagarik Unmukti Party has each achieved 50,051 votes.
Towards the direct electoral counts, the NC has been elected in 17 seats, UML in seven, NCP in seven, Shram Sanskriti in three, RPP and independent candidate one each.
The vote counts showed the RSP, NC and UML are taking lead in a one constituency each: RSP in Gorkha-1, NC in Ilam- 1, and the UML in Sankhuwasabha-1.
