Prachanda, daughter suffer humiliating defeats in CA elections

Nepal's Maoist supremo Prachanda today suffered a double blow as he and his daughter were handed down humiliating defeats in the Constituent Assembly elections.

Nepali Congress' candidate Rajan K C beat Unified CPN-Maoist chief, securing 20,392 votes and restricting Prachanda to 12,859 in his Kathmandu Constituency 10. Third candidate in contention CPN-UML's Surendra Manandhar also secured more votes than Prachanda (13,619 votes).

Prachanda had won from the same constituency in 2008 with a big margin. Rajan was his nearest rival then.

Prachanda is also candidate from Siraha Constituency 5, where he was leading the vote count.

In Kathmandu constituency No 1, Nepali Congress general secretary Prakash Man Singh won the election by defeating his nearest rival Renu Dahal, daughter of Prachanda, with a huge margin.

Nepali Congress so far has secured six seats while CPN-UML has bagged five seats in the Constituent Assembly polls.

Pranchanda's party earlier demanded a suspension of the vote count, alleging conspiracy after initial results showed the party was trailing at the third position in the elections.

Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told a press conference today that the counting was being carried out in "a transparent manner" and would continue.

"The elections were conducted in a free, fair and fearless manner, so the results must be accepted by all."

He also asked the political parties to honour the peoples' verdict expressed through secret voting procedures.

The counting will lead to the formation of a 601-member assembly to draft a new Constitution, including 240 elected under a direct voting system.

There was proportionate voting for 335 seats and the remaining 26 members will be nominated by the government.

In the previous Constituent Assembly elections in 2008, UCPN-M had emerged as the largest party with Nepali Congress and CPN–UML in second and third place respectively.