Congress picks candidates for NA polls

KATHMANDU, Jan 3: The ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has picked the candidates’ names for the upcoming National Assembly (NA) elections. 

A central committee meeting of the NC held on Monday decided to nominate Gopal Basnet from Province 1 and Krishna Prasad Poudel from Bagmati province as the NA candidates. Similarly, Kamal Panta (Gandaki), Yubraj Sharma (Lumbini), Durga Pun (Karnali) and Narayan Dutta Mishra (Sudur Paschim) will contest for the vacant seats in the NA representing the party. 

The poll body Election Commission (EC) is holding elections for 19 vacant seats of the upper house on January 26. 

The NC has been allotted as many as six seats during the seat division among the five coalition partners. A meeting of the ruling alliance held on Monday morning decided to jointly contest the election allotting five seats each to CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist). Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and Rastriya Janamorcha have got two and one seat respectively. 

Janamorcha decided to field Rajesh Bishwokarma as a candidate for the vacant seat in the National Assembly (NA) from Lumbini Province.