ILAM, April 28: The counting of votes for election to the member of House of Representatives (HoR) of Ilam Constituency-2 and provincial assembly member in Bajhang-1(a) is starting today.

An all-party meeting will be held shortly and the counting of votes will be started as per the decision in Illam-2, according to EC officials

After the voting was over, all the ballot boxes of 149 polling stations were brought to the counting place at Gautam Buddha City Hall in the district headquarters in the evening.Chief District Officer of Ilam Indradev Yadav said that the vote counting will begin after an all-party meeting.

Around 60 percent of the votes have been cast in Illam-2. Out of 115,889 voters, 69,287 votes were cast.

In the by-election, 12 parties and seven independent candidates are in the competition. All male candidates are contesting in this by-election. CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Center), Nepal Pariwar Dal and Nepal Communist Party have fielded Suhang Nembang of UML as a joint candidate.

Dambar Bahadur Khadka from the Nepali Congress(NC), Milan Kumar Yonghang Limbu from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and Dakendrasingh Thegim from the party advocating for identity politics have contested the election.

Prem Bahadur Limbu of Janmat Party, Shyam Bahadur Darji of Nepal Workers Peasants Party, Mani Bahadur Limbu of Mongol National Organization, Dhanraj Rana Magar of National Republic Nepal, Laxmi Gurung of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, and Jit Bahadur Rai of CPN (Unified Socialist) are also among the candidates.

Rastriya Mukti Andolan Nepal's Jaywanta Bikram Sah, RPP Nepal's Ganesh Bahadur Chauhan, and Nepali Janata Dal's Resham Bahadur Sunar Nepali have registered their candidacy. Dak Prasad Gautam, Manoj Niraula, Arjun Kumar Sahi, Dipesh Bohora, Yogendra Gurung and Raj Basyal have filed their candidature as independent candidates.

After the death of UML Vice Chairman Subaschandra Nembang, who is also the former Speaker of the Constituent Assembly, on September 12, the by-election  was held to fill the vacant position.

In Bajhang (A), only 26,180 of the total 61,748 eligible voters cast their votes in 74 polling stations across the constituency, according to Chief Election Officer in the district Sudarshan Lamichhane. 

The by-election for a provincial member was held after the post fell vacant following the death of Sudurpaschim Provincial Assembly member Prithvi Bahadur Singh in a road accident in June last year.

 
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