Voting for 19 seats of the National Assembly has started in all seven provinces Thursday morning.
Voting, that started at nine in the morning will continue till three in the afternoon. The Election Commission has planned to announce the results Thursday itself.
A total of 51 candidates from eight parties are contesting for the 19 seats in the election in which provincial assembly members, and chiefs and deputy chiefs of the local bodies in the respective provinces will be voters.
The ruling coalition has fielded 10 Nepali Congress (NC) candidates, six from CPN (Maoist Center), two from CPN (Unified Socialist) and one from Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) for the 19 National Assembly seats that will be vacant from March 4, 2024.
The term of Bimala Rai Paudel, who was nominated by the then president on recommendation of the then KP Sharma Oli government, is also set to expire on March 4. The coalition has already decided to replace Bimala Rai Paudel with Rastriya Janamorcha Vice-chair Durga Paudel.
Nine of the 20 members whose term is set to expire in March are from CPN-UML including Bimala Rai Paudel nominated by the president. The National Assembly members whose term is set to expire also includes four from NC, three from CPN (Maoist Center), two from CPN (Unified Socialist), one from Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and independent lawmaker Khim Lal Devkota.
