Balendra Shah, an independent candidate for the mayoral post of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, has continued to stretch his lead.

As of 9:30 am Friday, Shah had increased the gap with his closest rival Keshav Sthapit of the CPN-UML by 12,215 votes. He has secured 26,601 votes and Sthapit is trailing with 14,386 votes.

Nepali Congress’ Shrijana Singh is third with 13,401 votes.

Kathmandu is the biggest metropolitan city with a little over 300,000 eligible voters. As per the election commission, voter turnout in Kathmandu Metropolitan City was around 64 percent, which means around 192,000 votes were cast.

In the deputy mayoral race, UML’s Sunita Dangol is leading with 26,575 votes. Rameshwor Shreshtha of CPN (Unified Socialist) is lagging far behind with 8,591 votes.