KATHMANDU: Counting of votes of wards 1, 2, 31 and 32 of Birgunj Metropolitan City is taking place at Shree Nrisingh Secondary School in Pipra.
Out of the 3,579 votes counted till noon on Sunday, invalid votes have been found more than valid ones for the deputy mayor’s post. According to the Chief Electoral Officer, 1,706 votes out of 3,579 have been declared valid and 1,873 votes have been invalidated.
Imtiaz Alam, the Nepali Congress (NC) candidate for deputy mayor from the five-party alliance, has got the highest number of 1,337 votes. The CPN-UML-Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) alliance candidate Purushottam Lal Jha got 183 votes and independent deputy mayoral candidate Rambha Mishra got 102 votes.
In the mayoral vote count, the number of invalid votes is less than that of the deputy mayor.
Chief Election Officer Dharmaraj Poudel said that out of 3,579 votes counted for the post of mayor, only 931 votes were invalid.
Out of 2,648 valid votes, coalition cadidate Rajeshman Singh has secured 1,810 votes. Vijay Kumar Sarawgi of the UML-DSP alliance got 747 votes. Girish Giri of Rastriya Prajatantra Party has received 45 votes.
The Election Office did not even conduct voter education program this time.
Chief Election Officer of Birgunj Metropolitan City Dharmaraj Poudel said that the Election Commission had brought voter education earlier but did not bring any program this time.
“We are also surprised to see the proportion of invalid votes. This is due to lack of voter education.”
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