Ruling party candidate injured in Nepal blast

A candidate of Nepal’s ruling party suffered injuries yesterday when a landmine triggered by protesters hit his vehicle as he headed to an election rally, an official said.Narayan Bahadur Karki, of the Nepali Congress party, was in a jeep on his way to address an election rally at a village in Udayapur district in the country’s southeast when he came under attack, said Chandra Man Shreshtha, the district’s chief administrator.He said the driver and two supporters were also wounded in the blast, and the jeep was damaged.“All of them have injuries on their hands and legs,” he said.Karki has been airlifted to the capital Kathmandu for medical treatment.Yesterday, police arrested 50 members of Communist Party of Nepal, a splinter Maoist group, in Jhapa district after a crude bomb went off at the compound of a Nepali Congress candidate.Police have already arrested more than 500 of the party’s members.The radical group has vowed to disrupt the polls as part of its protests against the new constitution.On Sunday, Nepal held phase one of its first general elections under the constitution, enacted in September 2015.While Sunday’s polls were largely peaceful, several areas in the country saw violence in the run up to the vote.The second round - in the capital Kathmandu and the low-lying areas in the south - is due to take place on December 7.