Sarlahi. SARLAHI — As many as 154 people, including former ministers, who had contested the election to the House of Representatives from all four constituencies in Sarlahi district have forfeited their deposits. As per the Election Act, the guarantee of a candidate who fails to secure 10 per cent of the total valid votes will be forfeited.

According to Chief Election Officer Pushpa Raj Thapaliya, the deposits of 154 candidates including 68 independent candidates will be forfeited in the election held last Thursday. Those who have forfeited their deposits include former ministers and outgoing members of the House of Representatives.

The deposits of 28 candidates, including the outgoing lawmaker, will be forfeited in Constituency No. 1. Except for Shambhu Lal Shrestha, who had filed his candidacy from the Nepali Congress, all of them have been granted bail. A candidate from this constituency had to secure at least 7,385 votes to save his deposit. However, all but two candidates in the constituency have not been able to cross the 10 per cent threshold.

The Election Commission forfeited the deposits of 28 people including former member of the House of Representatives Ram Prakash Chaudhary, former lawmaker Pramod Sah and former mayor of Ishwarpur Municipality Manoj Kumar Devkota of CPN-UML.

Incumbent lawmaker Chaudhary garnered 3,991 votes, Sah 5,498 and Devkota 6,101 votes. Out of a total of 130,871 votes, 60. A total of 79,207 votes or 53 per cent were cast. Of them, 73,842 votes were approved.

Similarly, the security deposit of 29 persons including Rastriya Mukti Party Nepal Chairman and former Deputy Prime Minister Rajendra Mahato has been forfeited in constituency no 2. Of them, 17 are independent candidates. To save their deposits, candidates from this constituency need to get 7,239 votes out of 72,381 votes. According to the results of the vote count, Mahato got only 5,992 votes.

He could not even get 10 percent of the total valid votes. His nearest rival from Sarlahi-2 was CPN (Maoist Centre) candidate Mahendra Raya Yadav who got 8,523 votes. A total of 77,789 votes or 62.08 per cent of the total 125,311 votes were cast in the constituency. Of them, 72,381 votes were valid while 5,008 votes were invalid.

Likewise, in Sarlahi-3, only Nepali Communist Party (NCP) candidate and former home minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha has his deposit saved. Election Officer Nawaraj Acharya said that 32 candidates could forfeit their deposits in the constituency out of 34 candidacies. Thirty-two candidates, including 19 independents, failed to get 10 per cent of the total valid votes.

A total of 82,108 votes were cast in the constituency out of 134,412 voters. Of them, 77,838 votes were valid while 4,268 votes were invalid. Shrestha, a former home minister, bagged 13,338 votes against the requirement of securing bail in the constituency.

Former Defence Minister and outgoing member of the House of Representatives, Hari Prasad Upreti of the CPN-UML and Binod Kumar Khanal of the Nepali Congress, among others, have forfeited their deposits.

Similarly, in Sarlahi-4, the deposits of Nepali Congress President Gagan Kumar Thapa and CPN-UML’s Amish Kumar Yadav have been forfeited. Of the 38 candidates in the election, only Nepali Congress President Thapa and CPN-UML candidate Yadav saved their deposits. As many as 35 candidates, including 23 independents, have lost their security deposits.

In this constituency, 35 candidates could not even get the required 7,337 votes to save their deposits. Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Amresh Kumar Singh won the election with 35,688 votes while 77,931 voters cast their votes out of a total of 121,012 votes. Of them, 73,362 votes were valid while 4,569 votes were invalid.

NC’s nearest rival Thapa secured 22,831 votes while CPN-UML’s Yadav secured 9,343 votes. However, the deposits of Dr Rajnish Raya of the Nepali Communist Party and former minister Rameshwor Raya Yadav of the Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal have been forfeited.

As per the law, the amount kept while registering the candidacy can be forfeited if the candidate receives less than 10 per cent of the total valid votes cast in the first-past-the-post election to the House of Representatives. The Election Commission has stated that the money seized from the candidates will go to the state coffers.

This time, the number of candidates who lost their deposits has increased as the candidates elected in all the four constituencies of the district got huge votes.