JUMLA, March 9: While the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has swept many constituencies across the country with a strong electoral wave, the party failed to make a similar impact in Jumla. RSP candidate Binita Kathayat could not secure even the minimum 10 percent of valid votes, leading to the forfeiture of her election deposit in the House of Representatives election.
According to the District Election Office, Jumla, six out of the 10 candidates contesting the election failed to secure the required votes and lost their deposits. Under election laws, candidates must obtain at least 10 percent of the total valid votes to retain their deposits.
District Election Officer Dipendra Kandel said that out of 40,878 votes cast in the district, 1,705 votes were invalid, leaving 39,173 valid votes. Based on this, a candidate needed at least 3,917 votes to avoid losing their deposit.
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However, Kathayat received only 421 votes. Similarly, Birkha Bahadur Rawat of the Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party received 400 votes, Manrishi Dhital of the Pragatisheel Loktantrik Party received 113 votes, Birkha Bahadur Shahi of CPN (Maoist) secured 70 votes, Ranil Bikram Shahi of the Nepal Janata Party received 43 votes, and independent candidate Bhakta Bahadur Rawal received 14 votes, leading to the forfeiture of their deposits.
In the election, Gyan Bahadur Shahi of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) won the seat with 14,816 votes, defeating Naresh Bhandari of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) by a margin of 3,181 votes. Bhandari secured 11,635 votes.
Meanwhile, Dip Bahadur Shahi of the Nepali Congress (NC) received 7,143 votes, while Shantilal Mahat of CPN-UML secured 4,518 votes.
The district has 71,739 registered voters, of which 40,878 cast their votes under the First-Past-the-Post system.
Under the proportional representation system, the NCP emerged as the largest party with 10,202 votes, followed by the NC with 9,360 votes and the RPP with 6,552 votes.
Similarly, UML received 6,060 votes, RSP secured 5,118 votes, and the Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party obtained 1,421 votes, according to the Office of the Chief Election Officer in Jumla.
Voting was held at 110 polling centers across the district.
