Central member of Nepali Congress (NC) Guru Raj Ghimire has lost the election for president in Province 1 by two votes even as four senior leaders of the Ram Chandra Paudel faction that fielded him as candidate did not cast vote.
Uddhav Thapa, from the faction of Krishna Sitaula and supported by that of NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba, secured 844 votes to defeat Ghimire by two votes as the results arrived Monday morning.
Ghimire has applied for recounting accusing fraudulent counting. But things could have been different had the four leaders from his faction voted for him.
Central leaders like Vice-president Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, Sitaula and Amrit Aryal voted for the joint candidate of Deuba-Sitaula alliance. But Shekhar Koirala, Sujata Koirala, Mahesh Acharya and Bal Bahadur KC from the Paudel faction did not cast vote despite being at the place where voting was held even as Defense Minister Minendra Rijal, also from the same faction, voted.
Acharya, who announced candidacy for vice-president from Biratnagar on the day voting was held, did not even wait for voting, that started at two in the afternoon, and left for Kathmandu by a flight at 10 in the morning. Shekhar, Sujata and KC opted to not cast vote despite being present at the time of voting.
Shekhar, who is preparing to fight for NC president at the center, has apologized after Ghimire's narrow loss and scrutiny of his decision to not cast vote.
"There was 'doubt' from the beginning about whether central leaders can vote at the provincial level in the 14th general convention of Congress. It was understood after legal consultation that complexities can arise in the future while voting. I, therefore, deemed it was appropriate to not vote. Remaining cognizant of my weakness in this episode I apologize if I committed a mistake," Shekhar has tweeted Monday afternoon.
There is, however, no such doubt about whether central leaders can vote in the provincial convention with the party statute clearly stating that the central president, office-bearers and central members from the province concerned can participate in the provincial convention.
