A total of 831 votes were cast in the presidential election held on Thursday.

According to Amrita Bhandari, assistant election officer of the president and vice-president election office, 313 federal lawmakers and 518 provincial assembly members cast their votes.

A total of 881 federal and provincial lawmakers were eligible to vote.

A total of 14 federal lawmakers of the Rastriya Prajatantra party and lawmaker Prem Suwal of the Nepal Majdoor Kishan Party abstained from the voting.

CPN (Maoist Centre) lawmaker Barshaman Pun and Nepali Congress lawmaker Chandra Bhandari could not vote as they are in China and India respectively for treatment.

Likewise, UML’s Laxmi Koiri, who is on the run, was also absent.

A total of 28 provincial assembly members of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and three provincial assembly members of the Nepal Majdoor Kishan Party also abstained from voting.

The voting to elect the new president was held from 10am to 3pm.

This is the third presidential election in Nepal since the country became a republic in 2008.

Two former Speakers, Ram Chandra Paudel of the Nepali Congress and Subas Chandra Nembang of the CPN-UML, are in the fray for the largely ceremonial office.

A total of 884 members make up the Electoral College for the presidential election, including 275 members of the House of Representatives, 59 of the National Assembly and 550 of the seven provincial assemblies.

In the election for President, a vote cast by a member of both upper and lower houses will be considered to have the weight of 79 votes, whereas the vote cast by a member of the provincial assembly has the weight of 48 electoral votes.

The total weightage of the Electoral College is 52,786 votes if no seat in the federal parliament and provincial assembly is vacant. A candidate must secure majority votes to be elected.

Although the post of President is largely ceremonial, Nepal’s political parties have lately shown a growing interest in the post owing to the discretionary powers the constitution accords to the post.