Kathmandu, June 4
A writ has been filed at the Supreme Court on Sunday demanding that the Election Commission’s decision to redo voting in ward 19 of Bharatpur Metropolitan City not be implemented.
The Court will begin the hearing on Monday, according to advocate Tikaram Bhattarai.
The CPN-UML ward member candidate Gunjaman BK and advocate Tulsiram Pandey have filed the writ demanding that the Commission’s decision be annulled and the halted counting be resumed by declaring torn 90 ballot papers as invalid.
The plaintiffs in the writ have claimed that the Commission’s decision was unconstitutional, prejudiced, premeditated and influenced by ruling parties.
If the decision is not annulled, criminal activities will get promoted and elections will be a never-ending affair, they have claimed.
The constitutional body on Saturday had decided to redo the poll in Bharatpur after some Maoist cadres reportedly torn ballot papers while the vote counting was underway last week.
The ruling Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Centre, which had formed an election alliance, had demanded the revoting whereas the main opposition UML was in favour of resuming the vote counting delcaring the torn ballot papers invalid.
The NC-MC candidate Renu Dahal was lagging behind UML’s Devi Gyawali by few hundred votes in the mayoral race while the counting was halted after the incident.
