CPN-UML’s Bhagawati Chaudhary may beat common coalition candidate from Nepali Congress (NC) Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar in the House of Representatives (HoR) constituency of Sunsari-3 to stop him from winning parliamentary election for seventh consecutive time.
Gachchhadar is one of only two persons along with NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba to have won in all the parliamentary elections including the two Constituent Assembly (CA) elections since restoration of democracy in 1990. But UML’s Chaudhary, who lost to Gachchhadar by around 300 votes in 2017 and the Second CA Election in 2013, may turn the tables this time.
Gachchhadar had won the first three parliamentary elections from NC but had quit NC on February 1, 2008 and joined the then Madhesi Janadhikar Forum before the First CA Election. He won that election but later split the party to form Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Democratic). He then beat UML’s Chaudhary in the Second CA Election in 2013. He returned to NC on October 16, 2017 merging his party with the grand old party just before the provincial and federal elections.
Gachchhadar has become deputy prime minister and minister on over a dozen occasions after being elected from the Tharu dominant constituency in all six general elections post 1990. But the voters may opt for a new face in a Tharu woman this time.
The constituency includes Gadhi and Barju rural municipalities, Duhabi Municipality, ward number 7 of Inaruwa Municipality and ward numbers 6-15 of Itahari Sub-metropolitan City.
UML received the largest number of votes in the wards of this constituency at 35,053 while NC got 33,571 votes in the recent local election. Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) received 5,516, CPN (Maoist Center) 3,805 and CPN (Unified Socialist) formed after split of UML 626.
UML and JSP—which was in the ruling coalition during the local election but quit the coalition and decided to ally with the main opposition UML just before filing of nominations—together had secured more votes than NC, Maoist Center and Unified Socialist combined.
Setopati reached almost all the places in the constituency and talked with 260 voters about the upcoming election, their preferred parties/candidates, the reasons for their preference, and the most important issues for them among other things.
A whopping 103 (around 40%) of them said that they would vote for UML’s Chaudhary and 81 (over 31%) for Gachchhadar.
Other candidates seem far behind the two contenders. Setopati found 13 voters who said that they would vote on bell, the election symbol of Rastriya Swatantra Party led by Rabi Lamichhane, nine (almost 3.5%) for RPP, and 16 (around 6%) for different independent candidates.
Thirty-eight (almost 14.5%) voters said they had yet to decide who to vote for.
Chaudhary seems to have held on to most of the voters who had voted for her in 2017 while Gachchhadar seems to have lost some of them to Chaudhary, a few to Swatantra Party and independent candidates, and many of them seem undecided.
The 260 voters Setopati talked with included 128 who said they had voted for Gachchhadar and 82 who had voted for Chaudhary in 2017. Just 68 of those 128 voters said that they would again vote for him while 55 of the 82 who said they had voted for Chaudhary pledged to again vote for her.
Twenty-four of those 128 tellingly said that they would vote for Chaudhary this time while just six who had voted for Chaudhary in 2017 said they would vote for Gachchhadar this time.
Chaudhary, who had secured 38,651 votes in 2017 to lose by just 321 votes to Gachchhadar (38,972)—in this way looks set to overturn that result this time.
The voters have pointed at a few reasons for the possible change in result this time. The first is the wish for a change having elected the same candidate in all the parliamentary elections since restoration of democracy in 1990.
The corruption case filed by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) with the Special Court accusing Gachchhadar of facilitating Baluwatar land grab through expansion of the prime minister's official residence in Baluwatar as a physical infrastructure and planning minister also seems to be hurting Gachchhadar. The case is sub judice now but he will not be allowed to enter the House even if he wins the election until he is acquitted in the case.
Some may decide to not vote for him fearing that he may not be able to function as a lawmaker despite winning the election.
The people also seem to have sympathy toward Chaudhary for losing by such a small margin in the last two elections. And many female voters, including even those who have been traditionally voting for NC, especially want to elect a woman from the constituency.
Setopati also found voters who believed that Gachchhadar had rigged vote counting to win in 2017, and are more determined to exact revenge for that. Chaudhary had even moved the court alleging foul play in counting but the case is still sub judice five years on.
Gachchhadar also seems to face ire of some NC cadres who seem fed up with him for blocking other leaders in the constituency from getting the ticket despite quitting the party in the past.
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