MPRF retains Morang-5, Maoists upset NC in Kanchanpur-4

(Update II, with Morang-5 result and status of Morang-7 at 0545 NST, 0100 GMT)



KATHMANDU, April 11: In an upset for the Nepali Congress on Saturday, Maoist candidate Harish Thakulla beat his NC rival Yagya Raj Joshi in the Constituent Assembly by-election by 788 votes, our correspondent Bikram Giri reported. [break]



Meanwhile, our correspondent Ajit Tiwari from Biratnagar adds that in another result announced Saturday morning, Jairam Yadav of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum retained the Morang-5 CA seat for the party by defeating his nearest rival, Shiv Kumar Mandal, of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in the by-election held on Friday.






Thakulla got 10,782 votes to Joshi´s 9,994 in Kanchanpur-4. Niru Pal of Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) 5,539 votes.



The seat was previously won by NC senior leader and ex-prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba who vacated it subsequently.



In Morang-5, MPRF´s Yadav got 13,811 votes compared to his rival Mandal´s 8,331.



Another MPRF candidate, Chum Narayan Tabedar, is 129 votes ahead of his nearest rival NC candidate Dr Shekhar Koirala in Morang-7 in the counting conducted until 5 a.m. Saturday. He has secured 5,339 votes while Koirala has got 5,210 votes. Similarly, Bijay Tharu of Maoists and Binod Dhakal from CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist) got 4,444 and 2875 votes.



The Election Commission, Dhanusha branch, said 1 a.m. Saturday that the counting for Dhanusha-5 would begin at 2 a.m., according to our correspondent Tiwari.



The EC held the by-elections in six CA constituencies on Friday that had remained vacant after five incumbents vacated it retaining the other seat they had won and President Dr Ram Baran Yadav resigned his Morang-5 constituency since becoming head of the state.



(More results as they come.)