Rautahat, March 6 -- Early vote counting in Rautahat Constituency No. 1 shows Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) candidate Rajesh Chaudhary leading with 706 votes.

Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal's Yogendra Raya Yadav is in second place with 567 votes, followed by Nepali Congress's Anil Jha with 312 votes.

CPN-UML candidate Ajay Gupta has secured 288 votes, while former Prime Minister and Nepali Communist Party leader Madhav Kumar Nepal is in fifth place with 220 votes.

In the 2022 elections, Nepal won this constituency under the banner of the CPN (Unified Socialist) with 33,522 votes, narrowly defeating CPN-UML's Ajay Kumar Gupta.

Analysts say shifting voter preferences and the rise of new political forces have intensified competition among...