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

As of 8:30 am Monday, Shah had increased the gap with his closest rival Srijana Singh of the Nepali Congress by 17,563 votes. He has secured 43,162 votes and Singh is trailing with 25,599 votes.

CPN-UML’s Keshav Sthapit is third with 25,268 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 45,875 votes. Rameshwor Shreshtha of CPN (Unified Socialist) is lagging far behind with 15,282 votes.