Nepali Congress delegates are set to vote again to elect the party president after none of the five candidates could secure more than 50 percent of the total votes cast.

A total of 4,679 votes were cast to elect the new president, even though there were 4,743 delegates selected as voters.

Voters will now choose between incumbent President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Shekhar Koirala, who secured 2,258 and 1,702 votes, respectively, according to the Central Election Committee.

Similarly, Prakash Man Singh secured 371 votes and Bimalendra Nidhi secured 250 votes, respectively. The fifth candidate Kalyan Gurung obtained 22 votes.

For a candidate to win, he should have secured 2,340 votes.

Now the election results largely depend on how the equations evolve.

While Deuba just needs less than 100 votes, Shekhar needs over 500 votes.

For Koirala to win, both Singh and Nidhi (and their voters) need to support him.

Some senior Congress leaders said that Koirala has already reached out to both Singh and Nidhi while the Central Election Committee has started preparations to conduct the second round of elections.

On the other hand, Deuba also sent his close ally Bal Krishna Khand to meet with Singh, said party insiders.

Deuba fell short of 82 votes to win the contest. According to the Central Elections Committee, 76 votes were invalidated .

The grand old party is electing 13 office bearers—president, two party vice presidents, two general secretaries, eight joint general secretaries and 121 Central Working Committee members.

The party’s election committee has scheduled second round voting for 3:30pm Tuesday.