Chitwan, August 6
CPN-Maoist Centre candidate Renu Dahal has been elected the mayor of Bharatpur Metropolitan City as the repolling held in Ward 19 favoured the alliance of Nepali Congress and Maoist party over CPN-UML.
As the final results have been announced on Saturday night, Dahal polled 43127, which is 203 more than 42,924 votes garnered by UML candidate Devi Gyawali.
The Supreme Court last week had ordered the Election Commission to redo polling in the ward after 90 ballot papers had been torn from the ward earlier.
The city had held local level elections on May 14 and vote counting was underway while some Maoist cadres reportedly torn 90 ballot papers in May last week. The vote counting had been halted since then.
Before the halt, Gyawali was ahead of Dahal by 784 votes. Votes from wards 19 and 20 were yet to be counted then.
After the incident, the UML had demanded that torn ballot papers be declared invalid and results be announced on the basis of remaining votes whereas Congress and Maoists had demanded that a repolling be held in ward 19.
The Election Commission had also decided to redo voting in ward 19, from where the ballot papers had been torn. However, the UML had objected to the decision and made two of its supporters file a writ against the decision at the Supreme Court.
The Court, then, had stayed the decision. But, the Court later had upheld the Commission’s decision and quashed the writ.
Meanwhile, the Congress-Maoist alliance’s Parvati Shah won the position of deputy mayor by defeating UML’s Dibya Sharma Acharya. Shah secured 47,197 votes against 39,525 of Acharya.
