POKHARA, May 21: The counting of votes has remained halted since more than 24 hours of Pokhara-Lekhnath Metropolis as the ballot papers with different voting stamp was found on Saturday afternoon.

While counting the ballot papers of ward number 17 of the metropolis, few proxy votes were found after which, Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Center) and other parties protest and obstructed the counting process since Saturday afternoon.

The dispute among the parties pushed into height as the ballot papers stamped on the symbol of sun of CPN-UML was of different color and bigger size.  This led the suspension of the vote counting.

The district election office took initiation to solve the dispute holding all party meetings on Saturday and Sunday. However, the meeting could not make any concrete decisions. Following the inconclusive meetings, the district election office has sent a letter to Election Commission (EC) in Kathmandu for the further directives, said election officer Ganga Lal Subedi.

“We are waiting for the reply from the EC. We will follow as per the direction from the EC”, informed Subedi.

Before the obstruction of the counting, fifty thousand votes were counted among the one hundred 25 thousand total casted votes in the largest metropolis of the country.

Meanwhile, the cadres from CPN-UML chanted slogans to resume the counting. 

 
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