Kathmandu [Nepal], February 25 : Nepali Congress senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel filed his candidacy for President on Saturday, according to The Kathmandu Post.

Poudel’s candidacy was proposed by Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba. The candidacy was seconded by President of Loktantrik Samajbadi Party Mahanta Thakur, Congress vice-president Purna Bahadur Khadka, Nagarik Unmukti Party Chairperson Ranjita Shrestha, Chairman of the Rastriya Janamorcha Chitra Bahadur KC and Maoist Centre’s Hitraj Pandey. Earlier today, Nepali Congress picked their party’s senior leader Poudel as its presidential candidate, reported The Kathmandu Post.
On Saturday morning, a meeting of the party’s central work execution committee took place and decided unanimously to select Poudel as the candidacy for the Presidential post, said Dhan Raj Gurung, the party’s vice president, after the meeting.
The party’s decision came a day after eight political parties including the ruling CPN (Maoist Centre) decided to support a NC candidate in the election of President scheduled for March 9, as per the report in The Kathmandu Post.
The parties had taken the decision during a meeting held at the prime minister’s residence in Baluwatar on Friday evening.
The Election Commission has scheduled the nomination of the President for February 25 and the election on March 9.
The meeting of the top leaders of NC, Maoist Centre, JSP and CPN (US) on Friday morning had agreed to restore the previous alliance- the alliance before that of the November 20 election.
Although the CPN UML had been insisting that the UML nominee would be the President as
per the agreement made on December 25, Nepal’s PM and Maoist Centre Chairman Dahal was forging national consensus in the election of the President.
The weightage of the vote cast each by members of the Nepal Federal Parliament and Provincial assemblies will be counted on the basis of the electoral college. A vote cast by a member of the Nepal federal parliament, including both upper and lower houses, will be considered to have a weight of 79 votes whereas a vote cast by a member of a provincial assembly will be considered to have a weight of 48 votes.
It means, there will be a total of 52,786 electoral votes in the Electoral College. The weight of the vote has been decided according to the ratio of lawmakers to the total population of the country as calculated in the 2011 census as the final report of the latest 2021 population census is not yet out.
A person who secures more than 50 per cent of the total votes in the voting in Nepal presidential election shall be elected as the president. (ANI)