Voting underway to elect 19 NA members

KATHMANDU: Voting is underway to elect 19 National Assembly members.

The tenure of the 20 lawmakers in the 59-strong upper house is expiring on March 3. Nineteen lawmakers will be elected through the election while one will be nominated by President Ram Chandra Paudel.

The voting that started at 9 am will last till 3 pm in the designated polling stations of the provinces. As per the law, the election has to be held 35 days before the end of the tenure of the members.

The province assembly members, rural municipality chairs and vice chairs, municipality mayors and deputy mayors will cast their vote in the election.

There will be an electoral college comprising members of the Province Assembly and chairperson and vice-chairperson of the rural municipality and mayor and deputy mayor of the municipality.

The weightage of a vote from Province Assembly members is 53 while it is 19 of a vote from chairpersons and vice-chairpersons of the rural municipalities and mayors and deputy mayors of municipalities. With this, the total vote weightage will be 57,559.

A total of 1,958 voters, including 549 provincial assembly members and chiefs and deputy chiefs of local levels, will cast their votes in the election.