Communist leader Vidya Devi Bhandari was today elected as Nepal’s first woman President by the parliament, weeks after it adopted a new landmark Constitution that declared the country a secular state.
54-year-old Bhandari, the Vice-president of CPN-UML and widow of late general secretary of the party Madan Bhandari, secured 327 votes against 214 votes of her rival veteran Nepali Congress leader Kul Bahadur Gurung.