KATHMANDU, July 31: The Election Commission (EC) on Monday instructed the district election office, Chitwan, to conduct re-election in ward no 19 of Bharatpur Metropolitan City at the earliest.
 
The instruction from the election body comes a day after the Supreme Court ordered the EC to conduct re-poll in ward no 19 of the metropolis. 

"We have instructed the chief district returning officer of Bharatpur to conduct the election in the disputed ward and announce election results at the earliest," said EC spokesperson Surya Prasad Sharma adding, "We hope they will do it without further delay."

Vote counting in Bharatpur was halted after some representatives of the CPN (Maoist Center) tore ballot papers at a time when CPN-UML candidate Devi Gyawali was leading the final vote count and the counting was about to complete. 
 
Out of the 29 wards in Bharatpur Metropolitan City, vote-counting in 27 wards have already been completed. Votes from ward number 19 were being counted when the incident took place. The votes of Ward 20 has yet to be counted.

Before the incident, UML's mayoral candidate Devi Gyawali was leading the count by 733 votes. While Gyawali had received a total of 41,641 votes, Maoist Center's candidate Renu Dahal was trailing with 40,908 votes.

 
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