Nepal polls: Prachanda wins seat by narrow margin, relatives lose

Maoist supremo Prachanda was elected to Nepal`s Constituent Assembly after winning one of two seats he contested by a narrow margin, as three of his close relatives faced humiliating defeats in the polls.

Kathmandu: Maoist supremo Prachanda was on Saturday elected to Nepal`s Constituent Assembly after winning one of two seats he contested by a narrow margin, as three of his close relatives faced humiliating defeats in the polls.

Prachanda, who heads the Unified CPN-Maoist, was elected from a seat in Siraha in southern Nepal by a margin of just 900 votes. He secured 15,244 votes to defeat his nearest rival Lila Shrestha of CPN-UML. Apart from his own defeat in another constituency in Kathmandu, where he finished third, Prachanda suffered major blows as his daughter Renu Dahal, cousin Narayan Dahal and daughter-in-law Bina Magar lost the race to enter the 601-member Assembly that will draft Nepal`s new Constitution. Renu was defeated in the polls in another Kathmandu seat, where Nepali Congress general secretary Prakash Man Singh emerged victorious by a big margin. Bina Magar was defeated in a constituency in Kanhanpur by CPN-UML candidate Lal Bahadur B K. Narayan Dahal lost the election from a Chitawan constituency to CPN-UML candidate Krishna Bhakta Pokharel. With Maoists headed for a rout in the polls, people did not celebrate Prachanda`s victory in Siraha district. The UCPN-Maoist party has suffered big losses and was running a distant third behind the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, according to official results. The Maoists are threatening to boycott the Assembly, alleging a conspiracy. Nepal went to the polls on Tuesday to chose a new Constituent Assembly that will have 240 members 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. 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.