Defeating Koirala in run-off, Deuba elected Congress president

KATHMANDU: Defeating Dr Shekhar Koirala in a run-off held on Tuesday, incumbent President Sher Bahadur Deuba won the election to helm the office for the topmost position for one more term. 

Deuba, who failed to secure 50 percent and one more vote ---- 2,340 --- in the first round of the election held on Monday, registered a comfortable victory over Koirala in the run-off. 

According to the vote-count result availed by the party’s election committee, Deuba secured a total of 2,733 votes out of the 4,574 votes cast in the run-off. Koirala, on the other hand, won only 1,855 votes. Similarly, 35 other voters were invalidated.

Re-polling was held as none of the five candidates secured more than 50 percent of the total votes cast in Monday’s voting. 

Top vote securers --- incumbent President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Dr Shekhar Koirala-- are pitted against each other. While Deuba secured 2,258, Koirala garnered  1,702 votes in the first round. A total of 4,679 votes were cast.

According to the party’s central election committee, Prakash Man Singh secured 371 votes followed by Bimalendra Nidhi who managed to win 250 votes. Kalyan Gurung garnered the lowest of 22 votes.