Voting has concluded in the by-elections for three vacant House of Representatives seats in Chitwan-2, Bara-2 and Tanahun-1 constituencies.
According to the Election Commission, the by-elections have seen a lower voter turnout compared to the November 2022 elections.
Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thapaliya said that Chitwan-2 saw the biggest drop in voter turnout this time.
Thapaliya said that 63 percent votes were cast in the constituency this time compared to 67.63 percent in November.
According to Thapaliya, 53 percent votes were cast in Tahanun-1 and 64 percent in Bara-2. Voter turnout in the two constituencies in November was 54.03 percent and 63.56 percent, respectively.
Voting in the by-elections took place from 7 AM to 5 PM Sunday.
According to the Election Commission, the three constituencies had a total of 353,247 voters in the by-elections.
The Election Commission is preparing to start counting votes on Sunday night itself.
Thapaliya told Setopati that the by-elections were held peacefully in all three constituencies, and that vote counting would begin after all the ballot boxes are collected and taken to the vote counting centers.
He said that ballot boxes would be collected in Bara-2 by 7:30 PM and vote counting would begin after 8 PM.
According to Thapaliya, it may take until 10 PM for ballot boxes to arrive at the vote counting center in Tahanun-1. “If the political parties agree, we will start vote counting even at 12 midnight,” he said.
Collecting ballot boxes in Chitwan-2 is also likely to take some time.
Thapaliya said that they have given instruction to start vote counting there after collecting ballot boxes by 9 PM.
“We have planned to publish the election results by tomorrow evening, it will definitely be completed by Tuesday evening,” Thapaliya said.
The percentage of votes cast in each constituency has been updated.
