Shishir Khanal of Rastriya Swatantra Party seems to be the front-runner in the election for House of Representatives (HoR) in Kathmandu-6.
Common coalition candidate from Nepali Congress (NC) and two-time incumbent Bhimsen Das Pradhan and CPN-UML candidate and former Nepal Police IGP Sarbendra Khanal seem to be competing for the second spot.
NC and UML are traditionally strong in the constituency but a large proportion of their voters seem disenchanted with the major parties and look set to give a chance to Rabi Lamichhane-led Rastriya Swatantra Party this time.
Setopati reached almost all the places in the constituency and talked with 251 voters about the upcoming election, their preferred parties/candidates, the reasons for their preference, and the most important issues for them among other things.
Seventy-seven (30.6%) of them said that they would vote for Shishir Khanal of Rastriya Swatantra Party, 46 (18.3%) of them said that they would vote for NC’s Pradhan, and 32 (12.7%) said that they would vote for UML’s Sarbendra Khanal. Similarly, two said that they would vote for RPP, and 10 for different small parties and independent candidates.
A whopping 84 (33.4%) of the voters said that they had yet to decide who to vote for. These undecided voters include 49 who had voted for NC and 33 who had voted for UML five years back. Two of the undecided voters had voted for RPP in 2017.
The 77 voters who said that they would vote for Shishir Khanal includes 27 traditional NC voters, and 27 traditional UML voters. Three of them had voted for RPP in 2017, and two for Bibeksheel Sajha Party while 10 are first-time voters. Twelve of the 77 did not want to reveal who they had voted for in 2017.
Rastriya Swatantra Party seems set to get a significant number of votes even in the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system from the constituency. Sixty-one of those Setopati talked with said that they would vote for Rastriya Swatantra Party in the PR electoral system, 45 for NC and 28 for UML.
The majority of those pledging to vote for Rastriya Swatantra Party in the PR electoral system also includes traditional NC and UML voters. The 61 pledging to vote on bell includes 21 traditional UML voters, 18 NC voters, eight new voters and 14 who did not want to reveal who they voted for in the past.
The major reason for such attraction toward Rastriya Swatantra Party seems to be frustration and disenchantment with the major political parties as evident from the composition of those who pledged to vote for Shishir Khanal.
Shishir Khanal seems to be the man to beat in the constituency and the only way either of NC’s Pradhan or UML’s Sarbendra Khanal can compete with him is if they manage to attract a large chunk of undecided voters. If around 33 percent of those voters are also evenly split among the three candidates, then Shishir Khanal looks set for an easy victory.
(Joint reporting by Shova Sharma, Manika Bishwakarma, Susan Chaudhary, Nirmala Ghimire, Unique Shrestha and Sabina Karki)
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