Nepali Congress takes lead in vote count, Maoists trailing

Nepali Congress today took a substantial lead in trends in counting of votes to choose an assembly that will draft Nepal's new constitution, as Maoists trailed at a distant third with their chief Prachanda handed a humiliating defeat in one of the two seats he contested.

The Sushil Koirala-led Nepali Congress (NC) was leading in 72 constituencies while its rival CPN-UML was ahead in 55 seats.

The Unified CPN-Maoist was third, leading in 21 seats, according to the trends projected by the Nepalese media.

Results for the polls were also announced for 20 seats with both NC and CPN-UML sharing 10 seats each.

The counting will lead to the formation of a 601-member Constituent Assembly, including 240 elected under a direct voting system. Proportionate voting will elect members to 335 seats and the remaining 26 members will be nominated by the government.

In what came as a double blow to Maoist supremo Prachanda, he and his daughter were handed down humiliating defeats in the polls.

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 by a big margin. Rajan was his nearest rival then.

Prachanda is also contesting 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, by a huge margin.

Meanwhile, Unified CPN-Maoist today demanded a suspension of the vote count, alleging conspiracy after initial results showed the party trailing at third position in the polls.

"Due to the conspiracy and unusual activities during the constituent assembly elections, counting did not go ahead as per people's expectations and opinions, therefore, we demand that the vote counting be postponed," the party said in a statement. The Nepali Congress party asked the UCPN-Maoist to show sportsmanship and honour the verdict given by the people.

"Be a responsibly political party and honour the verdict of the Nepali people," Nepali Congress vice president Ramchandra Poudyal told reporters here.

The CPN-UML also asked the Maoists to respect the verdict with party chairman Jhalanath Khanal, saying, "The Maoist chief himself had welcomed the conduction of the elections saying it was peaceful and impartial shortly after the voting was over and their sudden decision to boycott the vote counting and dishonouring the peoples verdict was a wrong step."

More than 70 per cent of the 12.147 million eligible voters participated in the second Constituent Assembly elections on Tuesday. The turnout was an all-time high. In the last election, the turnout was 61.7 per cent.

The vote was only the second one since a civil war launched by Maoist rebels ended in 2006. Nepal was then transformed into a secular republic.

The country plunged into a constitutional crisis after the previous Constituent Assembly was dissolved without promulgating the Constitution last year, and fresh elections scheduled for November 2012 were not held.

With the formation of an election government led by Khil Raj Regmi in March, parties agreed after prolonged talks to conduct the polls in June or by December.

Political infighting, including a split in the ruling Maoist party last year, confounded efforts to implement a peace plan meant to rebuild Nepal after the 10-year civil war.