Nepal Left alliance wins 72 seats, heading towards majority

Kathmandu: Nepal's Left alliance was on Sunday heading towards comfortable majority in the parliamentary elections, winning 72 of the 89 seats so far in the historic polls that many hope will bring the political stability to the country.

The CPN-UML led by former premier K P Oli and the CPN- Maoist led by former premier Prachanda have forged electoral alliance for both the provincial and parliamentary elections.

According to results released by the Election Commission, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist?Leninist (CPN- UML) has won 51 seats while its alliance partner CPN Maoist- Centre has bagged 21 seats.

The ruling Nepali Congress, which was the largest party in the last election, won only 10 seats, according to tallies.

Two Madhesi parties have won five seats.

The Federal Socialist Forum Nepal led by Upendra Yadav has won 2 seats whereas Rastriya Janata Party led by Mahanta Thakur has bagged 3 seats.

Naya Shakti Party led by former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai has won one seat and an independent was among winning candidates.

The vote counting is in progress for remaining 76 seats.

The house of representatives consists of 275 members, of which 165 would be elected directly under the first-past-the- post system while the remaining 110 will come through the proportional representation system.

Voting in two-phased parliamentary and provincial assembly elections were held on November 26 and December 7.

In the first phase, polling was held in 32 districts, mostly situated in the hilly and mountainous region, in which 65 per cent of voters had exercised their franchise. In the second phase, 67 per cent voter turnout was registered.

A total of 1,663 candidates contested polls for parliamentary seats.