Nepal parliamentary polls: Nepali Congress-led coalition leads in counting

Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's Nepali Congress (NC)-led ruling coalition was on Thursday on its way to winning Nepal's parliamentary elections and has bagged 40 seats out of 65 declared so far.

Out of the 275 Members of Parliament, 165 will be elected through direct voting, while the remaining 110 will be elected through a proportional electoral system.

Till now, the Nepali Congress has won 25 seats and is leading in 31 more.

The CPN-Maoist Centre has bagged 7 seats, CPN-Unified Socialist 6 and Rastriya Janamorcha and Lokatantrik Samajwadi Party one each. They all are part of the ruling coalition.

The Maoist Centre and CPN-Unified Socialist have been leading in 10 and 5 seats respectively.

The main Opposition CPN-UML led by former premier K P Sharma Oli has won 15 seats and is leading in 29 others.

The CPN-UML partners - the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Janata Samajwadi Party - have won two and one seats respectively.

The newly-formed Rastriya Swotantra Party has won five seats and is leading in four seats.

Rastriya Prajatantra Party has won two seats and is leading in three seats.

Nagarik Unmukti Party, Janmat Party, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and independent candidates have secured one seat each.

If trends continue, the NC-led five-party alliance will be in a position to form a coalition government.

However, the CPN-UML has secured the highest number of votes under the proportionate voting system, which gives it an advantage.

Under the proportionate system, the CPN-UML has so far received 3,65,505 votes whereas the NC and Maoist Centre received 3,37,328 and 1,61,069 votes respectively.

In Nepal's capital city Kathmandu, the CPN-UML could bag just one seat, down from the six it had bagged in 2017.

Out of the 10 seats in the district, the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) has secured five and Rastriya Swotantra Party (RSP) bagged four.

Elections to the House of Representatives (HoR) and seven provincial assemblies were held on Sunday. The counting of votes started on Monday.