The friendly competition between two influential leaders of Madhes Province in the ruling coalition—Rajendra Mahato and Mahindra Raya Yadav—is gradually turning into a hostile contest.
Yadav is contesting in Sarlahi-2 constituency for the House of Representatives (HoR) on ticket of CPN (Maoist Center) while Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP) leader Mahato is returning to Sarlahi after being elected from Dhanusha in the last HoR election in 2017.
The constituency was allotted to Maoist Center while deciding sharing of seats in the ruling coalition. But Mahato from LSP—that allied with the ruling coalition in the province after Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) quit the coalition and decided to ally with the main opposition CPN-UML just before filing of nominations—also filed candidacy from the constituency.
LSP is angry after the ruling coalition recently issued a statement clarifying that Yadav is the official coalition candidate for the constituency. LSP Chairman Mahantha Thakur has already taken exception pointing that the statement specifying the official coalition candidate was issued against the agreement with Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba.
The two leaders who have been doing politics on the agenda of Madhes are pitted against one another after nine years.
Yadav, who had lost the first parliamentary election after restoration of democracy in 1990 from Sarlahi-1 on ticket of CPN (Manandhar Group), was elected to the House from Sarlahi-1 on ticket of CPN-UML in the subsequent two parliamentary elections.
He joined the Madhes movement after the Janaandolan II and was elected to the First Constituent Assembly (CA) in 2008 from the then Tarai-Madhes Loktantrik Party through the proportional representation (PR) electoral system.
Mahato like Yadav had also lost the first parliamentary election after restoration of democracy in 1990 from Sarlahi-2 on ticket of Nepal Sadbhavana Party. He lost the next election three years later from the same constituency but became lawmaker defeating former prime minister (PM) Surya Bahadur Thapa five years later.
He was elected to the First CA from Sarlahi-4 on ticket of Sadbhavana Party formed after split of Nepal Sadbhavana Party.
The two leaders had contested from Sarlahi 2 in the Second CA election in 2013 when Yadav beat Mahato by 2,744 votes.
Yadav had defeated NC’s Jangi Lal Raya in Sarlahi-2 in the last election while Mahato had defeated NC’s Bimalendra Nidhi in Dhanusha five years back.
The two leaders are again facing each other in the upcoming election scheduled for November 20.
