Nepali Congress largest party in final poll results

The Nepali Congress, a moderate democratic force in the Himalayan country, has emerged the largest party after counting of votes ended Thursday in the proportional representation (PR) system of the Constituent Assembly polls.

Under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) election system too, the Nepali Congress emerged the leading party, securing 105 out of 240 seats.

According to Nepal' Election Commission, in votes counted for 335 seats under the PR category, the Nepali Congress secured 2.42 million votes against the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist's (CPN-UML) 2.24 million votes.

In the FPTP category, the CPN-UML had secured 91 seats.

Election Commission spokesperson Bir Bahadur Rai told IANS that his office will call on political parties to provide names of their candidates for seats under the PR category.

The commission will divide the seats among political parties according to the vote ratio.

Around 20,000-25,000 votes will be equivalent to one seat, according to a rough estimate.

This means the the Nepali Congress may get 91 seats in the PR category, the CPN-UML may get 84 seats and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-Maoist) may get 54 seats.

The Maoist party got 1.43 million votes in the PR category.

The Rashtriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N), considered a rightist party that has been advocating return of the monarchy and declaring Nepal again a Hindu state, secured more than half a million votes in the PR category.

The RPP-N, which could not secure a single seat under the FPTP system, is in fourth place with 6,24,281 votes, while the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik (MJF-L) garnered 2,66,276 votes and the RPP got 2,59,238 votes.

In seventh place, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Nepal (MJF-N) garnered 2,12,733 votes and the Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party is in eighth position with 1,80,435 votes.

The Sadbhavana Party secured 1,33,521 votes and the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) got 1,30,261 votes.

Out of 122 political parties, only 10 secured seats under the FPTP system while 31 parties received votes in the PR category.