Ram Chandra Paudel elected president for next tenure

Ram Chandra Paudel of Nepali Congress has been declared as the third president in Nepal's Republic history, on Thursday 7:00 pm in an election held at the Parliament building in New, Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

Two candidates, Ram Chandra Paudel of Nepali Congress and Subash Chandra Nemwang of CPN-UML were selected for today's presidential election. Election commission hand overed the victory certificate at 6 pm, officially annoncing Paudel to be new president from March 13 onwards.

Paudel gets an overwhelming majority of 33,802 votes whereas Nemwang gets votes only around 15,518.

A total of 884 members make up the Electoral College for the presidential election, including 275 members of the House of Representatives, 59 of the National Assembly and 550 of the seven provincial assemblies. The total weightage of the Electoral College is 52,786 votes, if no seat in the federal parliament and provincial assembly is vacant.

But a total of 831 votes were cast in the presidential election. According to Amrita Bhandari, assistant election officer of the president and vice-president election office, 313 federal lawmakers and 518 provincial assembly members cast their votes.

Paudel gets an overwhelming majority of 33,802 votes

Today, 50 voters among which 32 provincial and 18 federal parliament members were absent. Single bench of supreme court didn't entertain the case of Prachanda today, the judge responsible for today's hearing Bishwambhar Shrestha is chief justice in waiting. Two Congress lawmakers, Chandra Bhandrai and Tek Bahadur Gurung, didn't attend today's voting as Bhandari is undergoing treatment in India for his burn injuries while Gurung has been convicted in a corruption case. Additionally, CPN (Maoist Centre) lawmaker Barsha Man Pun, who is currently in China for treatment, will not take part in the vote. Janata Samajbadi Party lawmaker Shahnaz Rahman died last month.

There are 14 MPs of RPP who were absent from the voting. Similarly, NMKP Prem Suwal also did not participate in the voting. UML's fugitive MP Lakshmi Mahato Koiri also did not participate in the voting. On the provincial side, 28 MPs of RPP and 3 MPs of NMKP did not participate in the voting. Similarly, JaSaPa MP of Madhesh Pradesh, Bindu Yadav was not present.

With this, the term of the incumbent of Bidhya Devi Bhandari will be completed on March 12 .

Paudel born in September 1944, Tanahu district is the senior leader of the Nepali Congress. Paudel was elected as the Leader of Parliamentary party of Nepali Congress in the

on June 20, 2009 securing 61 votes against Sher Bahadur Deuba, a former Prime Minister who received 48 votes.

As of education, he appeared the examination of M.A. (1970) in Nepali literature from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, while being detained the jail as an anti-panchayat leader. He also is SASTRI (1967) in Sanskrit literature from Tribhuvan University.

He spent over 15 years as a prisoner of conscience on various occasions being an opponent of dictatorial panchayat regime.