KATHMANDU, April 24: CPN-UML candidate Ram Prasad Neupane has taken an initial lead in the counting of votes for Chitwan-2 by-election.

UML candidate Neupane has taken the lead for the first time after the counting of votes started at the exhibition center of Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chitwan from 2 PM today.

The vote count was started by mixing the ballot papers of Ichchhakamana Rural Municipality Wards No. 1 and 3.

When the votes of Ichchhakamana Rural Municipality-1 were counted, Neupane got 367 votes. Chairman of Rastriya Swatantra Party Rabi Lamichhane is in second place with 319 votes while Nepali Congress candidate Jit Narayan Shrestha has got 244 votes.

In this constituency, there are 22 candidates along with Jit Narayan Shrestha of Nepali Congress from the Democratic-Left Alliance, Ram Prasad Neupane from the CPN-UML and Rabi Lamichhane from the Rastriya Swatantra Party.

The by-election was held after the Supreme Court scrapped Lamichhane’s lawmaker position over his citizenship dispute case. Lamichhane was elected from this constituency in the November 20 election last year.

 
• CPN-UML
 
• Chitwan-2
 
• by-election