ILAM, Dec 10: Candidates of the left alliance comprising CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) have emerged victorious over their opponents with huge margin of votes in Ilam. Despite claiming several victories in the past elections, Nepali Congress (NC)'s influential leaders have failed to repeat the feat this time.
Senior leader of CPN-UML and former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal was elected to the central parliament for the fifth time from Constituency 1 Ilam. Khanal garnered a total of 36,804 votes while his nearest rival Bhupendra Kattel of Nepali Congress(NC) received 19,637 votes. Khanal was successful in winning a seat with a big margin of 17,168 votes.
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Khanal, a permanent resident of Ilam, had earlier won the parliamentary elections in 1991, 1994, 2008 and 2013 but was defeated in 1999. He was appointed as the 37th prime minister of Nepal on February 6, 2011.
Likewise, in Constituency 2, CPN-UML leader and former speaker of parliament Subash Chandra Nembang grabbed his fourth victory from the district. Nembang garnered 36,517 votes while his opponent Keshav Thapa got 26,865 votes. Earlier, he had secured victory in the elections of 1999 and 2008. In 2013, he was defeated by NC's Bheshraj Acharya.
Meanwhile, in Constituency 1 (a), Khinu Langwa Limbu of CPN-UML won a provincial assembly seat by garnering 18,886 votes. Her closest rival Devendra Rai of Nepali Congress(NC) gathered 9,327 votes. In Constituency 1(b) , Kajiman Kagate of UML received 17,986 votes to defeat NC's Durga Kumar Baral, got 10,021 votes.
Furthermore, Ram Bahadur Magar of CPN-UML got elected in Constituency 2 (a) while CPN (Maoist Center)'s Dhiren Sharma won the election in Constituency 2 (b). Both of them secured victories with majority votes.
The vote counting which began from 3 pm Friday was completed before 10 am Sunday. The office of the Chief Election Officer has distributed certificates to all the winners. Meanwhile, vote counting for the candidates under proportional representation has started from Sunday evening.
