Earlier in the first round of voting, Deuba got 45 and Poudel 39 of the 109 votes cast by NC parliamentarians at their PP office at Singha Durbar. The other two candidates in the fray -- general secretary Kul Bahadur Gurung and NC lawmaker Suprabha Ghimire -- got 12 votes each. One vote was invalid. Five NC lawmakers did not take part in the election. [break]
As per the party statute, a candidate for PP leader´s post has to get one more than 50 percent of the votes. This counts to 58 of the party´s 114 members in the Constituent Assembly cum Legislature-Parliament. However, in the second round of voting, a simple majority of the members who cast votes will decide the winner.
Meanwhile, 17 PP working committee members have been elected -- 11 of them unopposed and six in the election. The PP will have 19 members -- chair, vice-chair and 17 members.
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