Members of provincial assemblies and mayors/chairpersons and deputy mayors/vice-chairpersons of the local levels are voting to elect National Assembly members for the vacant seats. Nineteen upper house members will be elected from all the seven provinces on Thursday.

The term of 20 lawmakers in the 59-strong upper house is expiring on March 3. While 19 seats will be filled through elections, one member will be nominated by the President on the Cabinet’s recommendation.

According to the Election Commission, the voting began at 9am at designated polling stations in the provinces and will continue till 3pm.

As many as 549 provincial assembly members and 1,498 chiefs and their deputies of the local units are eligible to vote in the upper house election. Their votes have a combined weightage of 57,559. A vote of the provincial assembly member carries a weightage of 53, whereas it is 19 each for the chief and deputy chiefs of the local units.

A total of 51 candidates from eight political parties are in the election race.

The parties in the Nepali Congress-led ruling alliance are contesting the election together, while the main opposition the CPN-UML is vying for the election forging an electoral alliance with the Rastriya Prajatantra Party in Koshi Province.

In the province, UML has agreed to support Uddhav Paudel of the Prajatantra Party competing under the others category while the Prajatantra Party will vote for UML’s female candidate Rukmini Koirala in return.