Ram Sahaya Prasad Yadav elected Nepal’s Vice-President

Kathmandu: Ramsahay Yadav, a leader from the Madhes region, was elected the third Vice-President of Nepal, as voting for the top post concluded on Friday.

Yadav, a candidate who had the backing of Nepal’s eight-party ruling alliance, defeated Ashta Laxmi Shakya of the CPN-UML and Mamata Jha of the Janamat Party.

Yadav, 52, from the Janata Samajbadi Party, secured 30,328 votes from 184 federal and 329 provincial lawmakers, The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported.

The Election Commission has not yet declared the results officially. Besides his own party, Nepali Congress, CPN-Maoist Centre, and CPN-Unified Socialist voted for him, the report said.

Shakya received votes from 104 federal and 169 provincial lawmakers, and Jha secured votes from 23 federal and 15 provincial lawmakers, it said.

Yadav, a Madhesi leader, will replace incumbent Nanda Bahadur Pun after he completes his tenure.

The Madhesi community in Nepal’s southern Terai region is mostly of Indian origin.

The total weightage of the votes of the 332 voters of the federal Parliament and 550 voters of the provincial assemblies adds up to 52,628, thus requiring a candidate to bag at least 26,315 votes to win the election.

This is the third Vice-Presidential election since the country adopted the federal democratic republic system in 2008.

The tenure of the Vice-President is five years.

Yadav started his political journey in 1990 with Nepal Sadbhawana Party.

He was the founding general secretary of the Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum and had an active role in the first Madhesh Movement (2007).

Yadav was elected to the House of Representatives from Bara-2 in the November polls held last year.