After a long controversy and court battle, CPN-MC’s mayoral candidate Renu Dahal has finally won Bharatpur Metropolis. She received 43,127 votes against 42,924 votes cast for Devi Prasad Gyawali of CPN-UML.

Nepali Congress’ Parbati Shah won the post of deputy mayor beating her rival Divya Sharma Acharya of the CPN-UML. While Sharma won with 47,197 votes, Acharya received 39,525 votes.

This is the first metropolis to have a mayor and deputy mayor both are women. Daughter of Maoist center leader, Renu Dahal’s victory is also a sigh of relief for Maoist party.

According to Chief Returning Officer Kabi Prasad Neupane, UML, NC, and CPN-MC won 14, 12 and three wards of the metropolis respectively. The metropolis has 29 wards.

The metropolis had witnessed electoral alliance between CPN-MC and Nepali Congress for the top two posts, according to which, the former had fielded Renu Dahal, daughter of CPN-MC Chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal for the post of mayor while the latter had fielded Parbati Shah as the deputy mayoral candidate.

The election was held earlier in the metropolis on May 14 in the first round of civic polls. However, some CPN-MC representatives had torn ballot papers on the night of May 28 when vote counting was on, subsequently leading to a halt in vote counting. Of the 29 wards in the metropolis, vote counting had been completed in 27. Counting was under way for Ward No 19 when the incident happened.