Nepal Polls: Maoists win 217 seats in Constituent Assembly

The counting of votes for the historic Constituent Assembly polls ended today. The Maoists won 217 seats in the 601-member Constituent Assembly. While they won 120 seats in direct elections, they were given 97 seats under proportional representation. While the Maoists secured 29.27 per cent of the total votes, the Nepali Congress got 21.13 per cent and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) got 20.33 per cent of the total votes.

The Nepali Congress got 107 seats only. The new Nepalese government is empowered to nominate candidates to fill a further 26 seats. Meanwhile, Maoist leader Prachanda has said that Nepal will scrap the existing treaty (signed in 1950) with India and will sign a new one with a different approach.