Maoists hit century as they head for landslide victory

CPN-Maoist seems clearly poised to secure a simple majority under the first-past-the-post system, crossing the century mark by bagging 101 seats as of 12:15 pm.

Reports coming in say that the party has emerged victorious in 101 constituencies out of the total 179 where vote counting has been completed.

Far behind the Maoists, the two major parties Nepali Congress (NC) and Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) are in neck-to-neck competition.

The NC has so far bagged 30 seats while UML had pocketed 25 seats.

Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has emerged as a strong force in Terai region. It has won 15 seats. Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) has bagged 5 seats.

Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) has won two seats while People's Front and Rajendra Mahato-led Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) have won one seat each.

An independent candidate Babban Singh has won in a Rautahat constituency.

In the majority of constituencies where the counting is proceeding, the Maoists are in the lead.

Currently, the vote counting results of 240 constituencies set aside for direct election have been coming. Following that the counting for Proportional Representation (PR) seats (335 in total) will be conducted. The initial PR counting in Lalitpur-3 constituency shows the Maoists are leading in that as well .nepalnews.com sd/ag Apr 14 08