Hari Dhakal of Rastriya Swatantra Party seems to be the front-runner in the election for House of Representatives (HoR) in Chitwan-1. Common coalition candidate from Nepali Congress (NC) Bishwa Paudel seems likely to contest with Dhakal for victory while Surendra Pandey of CPN-UML seems to be in the red zone.
The constituency includes Ratnanagar, Khairahani, and Rapti municipalities. NC candidates were elected mayors in the first two municipalities as the ruling coalition continued electoral alliance in the last local election while CPN (Unified Socialist), also part of the ruling coalition, won in Rapti.
UML received the largest number of votes in the wards of this constituency at 39,606 while NC got 36,783 votes in the recent local election. CPN (Maoist Center) and Unified Socialist received 5,252 and 4,005 votes respectively which means the three parties in the ruling coalition together secured more than 46,000 votes.
UML had secured 39,900 votes in the proportional representation (PR) electoral system from the constituency, NC 30,750, and Maoist Center 8,078 in the last general election in 2017.
Paudel would coast to an easy victory on the basis of the votes received in the recent local election and the last general election, but Dhakal from Rastriya Swatantra Party seems to be the candidate to beat.
Setopati reached almost all the wards in the constituency and talked with around 150 voters about the upcoming election, their preferred parties/candidates, the reasons for their preference, the most important issues for them among other things.
Twenty-eight percent of them said they would vote on bell, the election symbol of Rastriya Swatantra Party, 23 percent said they would vote for NC’s Paudel, 16 percent for UML’s Pandey, and five percent for RPP. Another five percent said they would not vote for anyone while 23 percent said they had yet to decide.
We found 42 persons who said they would vote for Dhakal. A whopping 19 of them said they had voted for UML five years back, 13 said they had voted for NC and three for Maoist Center. Five of them did not want to reveal who they had voted for in 2017.
The fact that Chairman of Rastriya Swatantra Party Rabi Lamichhane is contesting in the adjoining constituency of Chitwan-2 seems to have created a conducive environment for Dhakal in the constituency where UML and NC have been traditionally strong even though all the voters may not recognize him.
The UML background of Dhakal also seems to be working for him. Dhakal, who is involved in trading of shares for the past 15 years, had quit the then ruling CPN—that included UML and Maoist Center—protesting against what he called adverse policy adopted by the then finance minister Yubaraj Khatiwada against the share market.
Summary Hari Dhakal of Rastriya Swatantra Party seems to be the front-runner in the election for House of Representatives (HoR) in Chitwan-1. Common coalition candidate from Nepali Congress (NC) Bishwa Paudel seems likely to contest with Dhakal for victory while Surendra Pandey of CPN-UML seems to be in the red zone. Author Line Author Add + Section Tag Line Date Line Category # Tags Categorical Feature Recommended News Video Report Special News Live Updates Listing Featured Other Features Full Page Story Photo Gallery Instant Article Published Status Published Date Widget Hide in Home Will be displayed only in the banners. Embed Video
The 39-year-old had been affiliated with UML for the whole of his adult life and was Chitwan secretary of the UML’s student wing. He was actively involved in campaigning to get UML candidates elected mayor of Ratnanagar municipality, and HoR member from Chitwan-1 in 2017.
He now seems to be the biggest hurdle for UML’s Pandey who was elected from this constituency in the Second Constituent Assembly (CA) election in 2013 and the parliamentary election in 2017.
NC’s Paudel seems to be in a relatively better position than UML’s Pandey. He has the advantage of being the common coalition candidate while being a first-time contender in parliamentary election also seems to be working in his favor. The fact that he is immediate past vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) also seems to make people think that he could get funds allotted for development of the constituency should the ruling coalition form the next government.
He is also breathing a sigh of relief as NC leader Rajendra Burlakoti, who had filed rebel candidacy after the party gave the ticket to Paudel, has withdrawn his candidacy and is now campaigning for him.
Those who said they would vote for Paudel included three who said they had voted for UML five years back but we found no one who said they had voted for NC in 2017 and would vote for UML now.
UML’s Pandey also seems to suffer from this perception that he didn’t contribute much for development of the constituency despite winning the past two general elections, even though the constituency is far developed than most of the constituencies outside the Kathmandu Valley, and some development projects may well have been allotted for the constituency on his initiative.
The fact that he was in the then Khanal-Nepal faction of UML during the internal dispute in the then ruling party and had opposed the House dissolution by KP Sharma Oli, and played a role in toppling the government led by UML Chairman Oli has not particularly enamored him with those loyal to Oli.
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He also does not seem to have any sympathy from those in the then Khanal-Nepal faction as he chose to stay with UML and did not join Unified Socialist led by Madhav Kumar Nepal.
The election is still two weeks away and things can change in the intervening period and the 23 percent of voters who say they have yet to decide who they would vote for may ultimately decide the election. But Dhakal seems to be a genuine contender while Pandey will have his work cut out to win this constituency for the third consecutive time.
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