By Review Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal: Supreme Court (SC) has issued a stay order on the Election Commission (EC)’s decision to conduct reelections in the ward 19 of Bharatpur Metropolitan City.
Responding to the writ petition filed against of the EC decision, a single bench of Justice Cholendra Shumsher JBR issued the ordered on Monday to the EC not to implement its decision right away. In the writ, the EC has also issued order to present at the court on June 11.
Challenging the EC’s decision to conduct elections again two separate writs were filed on Sunday. UCPN Maoist cadres had torn up the ballot papers during the vote counting on May 28.
Following the incident, the EC had formed a probe committee, which had submitted a report to the EC confirming that 90 balloter papers had torn up by the Maoist Center representatives sat in the vote counting process.
As CPN UML’s mayoral candidate Devi Gyanwali and UCPN Maoist’s mayoral candidate Renu Dahal were close contenders of the elections, the former had been demanding for resumption of the vote counting process while latter had demand reelection in the ward number 19.
The EC had on June 20 decided to conduct reelections in ward 19 referring to the report of the probe committee and the existing laws. The UML has been launching various protest programs against of the EC decision.
