Nepali Congress emerges largest party in parliament

In this November 21, 2013 photo, Nepali Congress party supporters cast their shadows near a party flag painted on a road as their candidates are displayed on a screen outside a vote counting centre in Kathmandu. The Nepali Congress has won the largest share of seats in the Constituent Assembly.

The Nepali Congress Party won the largest share of seats in the Constituent Assembly, according to official election results announced on Tuesday.

The party, which already won 105 seats through direct election, took an additional 91 seats though the proportional representation system, for a total of 196. The 601-member Assembly will also function as a parliament.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) won a combined total of 175 seats.

The United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which was the largest in the previous parliament, won 80 seats, the Election Commission said. The party is demanding an investigation into alleged voting irregularities.

The royalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal won 24 seats.

“The agenda will still be the same, only the drivers of an old bus have changed,” said political commentator Bijay Kumar Pandey.

“Federalism is still the agenda of all the three major parities and it will still be a secular Nepal.” In the previous Constituent Assembly, the Maoists had a total of 229 seats, while the Nepali Congress had 115 and the UML had 108 seats.

That 2008 Assembly failed to produce a draft constitution after several deadline extensions and was disbanded in 2012.