Bombers target election rallies in Nepal

By Deepak Adhikari

KATHMANDU, Nepal

Two separate bomb blasts rocked election rallies in Nepal on Tuesday during a break in rounds of voting for a new federal government.

In Dang, a district in the Himalayan country’s mid-west, seven civilians and a police officer were wounded in an explosion 200 meters (yards) from a rally, police officer Durga Singh said.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had been due to address the rally of the ruling Nepali Congress party.

On the outskirts of capital Kathmandu, a crude bomb detonated moments before former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli was scheduled to address a rally of the opposition Unified Marxist-Leninist party.

No one was injured in the explosion around 400 meters from the meeting.

The Communist Party of Nepal, a Maoist group that split from the main party in 2014, is believed to be behind the attacks. Police have arrested more than 500 party members in recent weeks.

The attacks came two days after the end of the first round of a two phase election. Logistical problems and the harsh mountain climate has seen the election split.

Thousands of candidates from more than 90 parties are competing for 275 seats in the new federal parliament and 550 seats in seven provincial assemblies across the country.

The election, the first to be held under a 2015 constitution that will create a federal state in the former monarchy, is expected to be tightly fought between the Nepali Congress and an alliance of the Unified Marxist-Leninist, the Communist Party and former rebel Maoists.

Vote counting will begin following the second phase of polls on Dec. 7 in Kathmandu and the southern plains bordering India, according to the Election Commission.

The results are expected by mid-December.

Also Tuesday, police arrested two men with explosive devices in a southeastern village.

The army has defused dozens of homemade bombs, including a powerful roadside device in the southeastern Saptari district, in the run-up to the vote.