Voting is underway on Sunday to elect 17 members to the National Assembly. Out of the 19 positions that will fall vacant from February 20, elections are being held for the remaining positions as one member has already been elected unopposed and one will be nominated by the President on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.

Article 86 (3) of the Constitution states that elections should be held 35 days before the vacancy occurs for the seat of a National Assembly member due to the expiration of the term of office of the member. There is a provision to elect a new member from the voters of the province from which the seat is about to be vacant. The election will be held in the provincial capital. 

Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said that all preparations for the National Assembly election have been completed. According to him, voting will be held from 9 am to 3 pm on Sunday. Preparations are underway to start counting immediately after the voting is over. 

Provincial Assembly members, municipal mayors/chairmen and deputy mayors/vice presidents are voters in the National Assembly election. Out of a total of 2,056 voters, 550 members of 7 provincial assemblies and 753 municipal mayors/chairmen and deputy mayors/vice presidents, 14 seats are already vacant due to various reasons.

16 provincial assembly and 11 local level office bearers have resigned to contest the upcoming House of Representatives election. The Election Commission has stated that those who have resigned recently will not be allowed to vote even if their names are in the voter list. 

The voter list published by the commission includes the names of 545 provincial assembly members and 1,497 municipal mayors/chairmen, deputy mayors/vice-chairmen. One vote of a provincial assembly member is worth 53 votes. Municipal office bearers have 19 votes.

Congress's Sunil Bahadur Thapa has been elected unopposed in one seat from the 'other' group from Koshi Province. 43 people are in the fray for the remaining 17 members. An electoral alliance has been formed between the Congress, UML and JSP Nepal.

The new leadership of the Congress, elected through the special general convention, has already said that the electoral alliance that was already in place for the National Assembly remains intact. The Congress has fielded candidates for 9 seats from the alliance, UML for 8 and JSP for 1 seat. The Nepali Communist Party has fielded candidates for 17 seats.

Voting is underway to elect 1 person each from the women and Dalit groups from Koshi Province in the National Assembly. Roshni Meche of UML and Namita Neupane of NCP are contesting for the women's seat. Somnath Portel of UML and Khemraj Nepali of NCP have filed their candidacies for the Dalit seat. 

Voting is underway in Madhesh Province for 4 seats, 1 each for women, Dalits, people with disabilities or minority communities and other groups. Rekha Kumari Jha from UML, Shami Kumari Agrawal from NCP and Chandra Kala Devi Sah from JSP Nepal have filed their candidacies for the women's seat. Dharmendra Paswan of Congress, Shambhu Paswan Hazari of NCP and Chameli Devi Das of JSP Nepal have filed their candidacies for the Dalit seat. Ranjit Karna of Congress, Ramnandan Prasad of NCP and Shailesh Kumar Chaudhary of JSP Nepal are contesting for the disabled or minority communities. 

LSP Chairman Mahantha Thakur has filed his candidacy from other groups. He is supported by Congress, UML and JSP Nepal. The NCP has fielded Laxman Poudel as its candidate. The JSP Nepal, which merged with the LSP, had announced that it would support the alliance and declared the candidacy filed by the party inactive. 

3 of the 107-member Madhesh Provincial Assembly members are suspended. Provincial Assembly members Saroj Singh Kushwaha (Mahottari) of the JSP, Dipendra Kumar Thakur (Dhanusha) of the UML, and Abhiram Sharma (Mahottari) of the LSP are suspended. 

Elections are being held in Bagmati Province for two seats, one for women and one from other groups. The Congress has fielded Geeta Devkota for the women's seat, the NCP has fielded Saroj Kumari Jha, and the NEMKIPA has fielded Kabita Maharjan. For the seats to be elected from other groups, Prem Prasad Dangal from the UML, Prem Prasad Sapkota from the NCP, and Bikram Dhukuchhu from the NEMKIPA have filed their candidacies. 

Voting is also underway in Gandaki Province for 2 seats in the National Assembly, 1 for women and 1 for other groups. Samjhana Devkota from UML, Goma Luitel Ghimire from NCP and Laxmi Baskota from Rastriya Janamorcha are in the fray for the women's seat. Jagat Timilsina from NC, Kapil Lama from NCP, and Shankar Prasad Baral from Rastriya Janamorcha are candidates for the other group seats.

Elections are going to be held in Lumbini for 3 seats, 1 for women, 1 for people with disabilities or minority communities and 1 for other groups. UML leader Ram Kumari Jhankri has become the candidate from the Congress-UML alliance. Durga Kumari Bhandari from NCP and Padma Pandit from Rastriya Janamorcha have filed their candidacies. Vasudev Ghimire from NC and Sarjan BK from NCP are the candidates for people with disabilities or minority communities. Chandra Bahadur KC from NC, Brihaspati Adhikari from NCP and Bom Bahadur Khatri from Rastriya Janamorcha have filed their candidacies for the other groups.