Nepal President to contest for second term

Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will contest elections for a second presidential term.

Bhandari registered her candidacy from the Left Alliance in the Office of the Election Commissioner, which has been set up in parliament here.

Bhandari is being challenged by Laxmi Rai of the Nepali Congress.

The election will be held on March 13.

Bhandari's candidacy was proposed by lawmakers Madhav Kumar Nepal, Bhim Bahadur Rawal, Subas Nembang, Ishwor Pokhrel and Onsari Gharti Magar. It was seconded by Ram Bahadur Thapa, Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Gokarna Bista, Bhanubhakta Dhakal and Rabindra Adhikari.

Laxmi Rai's candidacy was proposed by Chitralekha Yadav, Man Bahadur BK, Parbata DC Chaudhary, Debendra Raj Kandel and Surendra Raj Pandey.

It was seconded by Mekhlal Shrestha, Shiva Chandra Chaudhary, Sarita Prasain, Sujata Pariyar and Radha Ghale.

Mathematical calculations currently favour Bhandari.

A total of 330 lawmakers in Parliament and 550 lawmakers from the Provincial Council are eligible to vote in the presidential election.

Currently, there are 275 lawmakers in House of Representatives and 59 in the National Assembly.

But the vote weightage of lawmakers from the adjacent parliament is different.

The vote weightage of lawmaker of Federal Parliament is 79, whereas, it is 48 from the Provincial Council. The combined vote weightage of votes as per calculations now is 26070.

A total weightage of the Provincial Council is 26352.

The calculation of votes to be cast in favour of President Bhandari from the Left Alliance is 33675.

The main opposition Nepali Congress has the vote weightage of 11428 only.

The Rastriya Janata Party- Nepal and the Federal Socialist Forum- Nepal are expected to vote in favour of Bhandari, assuring her continuation in office.

The Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) has 148 lawmakers in the National Assembly and the House of Representatives or the Federal Assembly where 243 are in the Provincial Councils.

They all have the vote weightage of 23356 of which 10319 is from the Maoist Center.

The RJP-N and the FSF-N have a vote weightage of 2845 and 3198.