NA elections: Know party-wise vote weightage in Karnali

KATHMANDU, Jan 5: Nepal is holding elections for 19 vacant seats of the National Assembly (NA) on January 26. 

As per the law,  respective province assembly members and chairs/mayors and vice-chairs/deputy mayors of the local levels form an electoral college to cast their vote in the election to the member of the upper house of parliament. 

Of the 19, Karnali Province will elect three members of the NA during January 26 elections. 

Karnali has a total of 191 voters including 156 from the local federal units and 35 province assembly members. 

Each provincial member’s vote holds a weight of 48 while each vote cast by voters from the local federal units weigh 18. 

Karnali holds a total vote weightage of 1,680 from province assembly members and 2,808 from local level chief/deputy chief/chair/deputy chair the heads of local levels. 

CPN (Maoist Center) holds the highest number of votes including those from 52 (heads of local level) and 12 province assembly members. The total vote weightage of voters from the ruling party stands at 1,512 including 936 from local levels and 576 from province assembly members. 

Likewise, the main opposition CPN-UML has 45 votes from the local levels and 13 others from the provincial assembly. UML’s vote weightage in Karnali is 1,434. 

The ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has 40 votes from the local levels and six provincial assembly members. With this, NC has a total vote weightage of 1,008. 

The CPN (Unified Socialist), a newly formed party, has a total vote weightage of 378 in Karnali province. Rastriya Prajatantra Party has a vote weightage of 48. 

As many as six candidates filed their nominations in Karnalif for NA member elections, on Tuesday. 

The ruling alliance of five parties has fielded three common candidates including Durga Kumari Gurung (NC), Nar Bahadur Bista (Maoist Center) and Udaya Bohora (Unified Socialist) in the province. 

Padam Bahadur Majhi, Ganga Thapa Mahat and Chudamani Sharma, on the other hand, are in the fray for the membership of the upper house on behalf of the UML.

(With inputs from RSS)