Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has decided to vote for Nepali Congress (NC) candidate Ram Chandra Paudel in the presidential election being held on Thursday.
The meeting of office-bearers and lawmakers held at the party office has decided to vote for Paudel two hours before the voting is scheduled to be closed, according to an RSP leader.
The party, however, has not formally said who it will vote for in the ongoing election.
Talking to reporters after the meeting RSP Vice-president and Deputy Parliamentary Party Leader DP Aryal said that all the RSP lawmakers would vote for the same candidate but pointed that the preferred candidate could not be revealed due to the election code of conduct.
The party led by Rabi Lamichhane has 19 House of Representatives (HoR) members.
There is provision of electoral college for presidential election where federal and provincial lawmakers are voters. Their votes, however, do not carry equal importance and federal and provincial lawmakers are given different weightage.
The 334 federal lawmakers including 275 House of Representatives (HoR) members and 59 National Assembly (NA) members are given weightage of 79 for each vote while the 550 provincial lawmakers are given weightage of 48.
Paudel is contesting against CPN-UML Vice-chairman Subash Chandra Nembang for the post of the head of state. Paudel is the joint candidate of NC, CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), CPN (Unified Socialist), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP), Janamat Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and Nagarik Unmukti Party.
