By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : One person was killed as violence erupted in several places within hours after polling began in Nepal Thursday to elect a constituent assembly, which is expected to restore peace in a nation racked by a decade-old Maoist insurgency.
A man was run over by the car of a ruling party contestant when he was trying to flee a polling booth in Mahottari district in Nepal’s turbulent Terai plains after gunmen began firing indiscriminately, a private TV station said.
A veteran politician from Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s ruling Nepali Congress party was said to have survived an attempt on her life. Clashes between the party and its two main rivals, the Maoists and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), led to polling being stopped in several booths.
Leela Koirala, widow of Koirala’s cousin Saroj Koirala, who was assassinated during the rule of the Shah kings, was said to have survived a gun attack in Dhanusha district in the Terai plains, regarded as one of the most sensitive areas.
Leela is contesting from the troubled district where four armed underground outfits have called an indefinite shutdown in a bid to sabotage Thursday’s election.
Polling was stopped in three centres in Meghauli village in Chitwan district, where Maoist chief Prachanda is camping with his family to cast his vote.
Clashes broke out between the Maoists and Koirala’s Nepali Congress, resulting in the three polling centres being ransacked and set on fire.
In Mahottari district in the plains, the Nepali Congress fought with the UML, resulting in polling being stopped in the Suga centre. The police resorted to firing in the air to bring the situation under control, the home ministry said.
In Biratnagar town, Koirala’s constituency where the octogenarian premier had been among the first ones to cast his vote, the army defused a bomb inside a polling booth.
Two explosions were reported from two booths in Panchthar. Five people were caught with crude bombs in Saptari district, also in the Terai belt.
In Rautahat district, another volatile district in the plains, the police detained Maoist candidate Prabhu Shah after he reportedly misbehaved with election officials.
In Doramba village in Ramechhap, notorious for the massacre of Maoists by the army during an earlier period of ceasefire, the former rebels were said to have been obstructing supporters of rival parties from casting their votes.
In Dolakha district in north Nepal, near the border with Tibet, Nepali Congress cadres were said to be obstructing voters.
The twice-postponed election began at 7 a.m. Thursday under the shadow of violence. Nine people, mostly Maoists, were killed in pre-poll violence.
The constituent assembly election, Nepal’s first national poll in almost a decade, has been one of the most violent with nearly 30 people already killed.