All four CPN (Maoist Center) candidates for House of Representatives (HoR) in Kathmandu district have suffered a huge loss.
Former speaker Onsari Gharti lost in Kathmandu-2, Manushi Yami Bhattarai in Kathmandu-7, Kalpana Dhamala in Kathmandu-9 and Anjana Bishankhe in Kathmandu-10.
Badri Bajgai of the party had also filed candidacy from Kathmandu-3 but he later deactivated his candidacy and Santosh Chalise of Nepali Congress (NC) has been elected from the constituency.
NC and Maoist Center, both in the ruling coalition, had opted for friendly competition in Kathmandu-10 after Bishankhe filed candidacy against Rajan KC of NC. KC has eventually won in the constituency securing his third straight victory.
The Maoist candidates in Kathmandu secured so few votes that they could not even come second in any of those four constituencies because the party did not have votes in the district.
Maoist candidates had received just 16,791 votes at the ward level in Kathmandu district in the recent local election. The party, in this way, didn’t have enough votes to compete on its own in any of the 10 constituencies.
The ruling coalition fielded three Maoist candidates as the common coalition candidate after the party insisted that it should get three candidates in the district. But the party has once again suffered ignominious electoral defeat in Kathmandu.
Maoist Center insisted for candidacy in Kathmandu-2 even though the party had received just 3,131 votes at the ward level in the local election. UML had secured 17,325 votes at the ward level in the constituency, NC 14,128, CPN (Unified Socialist) 8,074 and RPP 7,200.
Maoist candidate Gharti came fourth in the HoR election won by Sobita Gautam of Rastriya Swatantra Party even though the ruling coalition together had received significantly more votes than UML.
UML’s Maniram Phuyal finished second while Kunti Devi Pokharel of RPP finished third.
Manushi Yami Bhattarai of Nepal Samajwadi Party led by Baburam Bhattarai contested on election symbol of Maoist Center from Kathmandu-7 as the common coalition candidate. But she came third behind winner Ganesh Parajuli of Swatantra Party and second-placed Shyam Kumar Ghimire of UML.
Maoist Center had received just 576 votes in the constituency in the recent local election. NC was the strongest party securing 14,167 votes ahead of UML (12,202), Unified Socialist (3,839) and RPP (2,027).
Similarly, Maoist candidate Dhamala came third in Kathmandu-9 behind winner Krishna Gopal Shrestha of UML and Tek Bahadur Pokharel of Swatantra Party despite contesting as the common coalition candidate.
NC was the strongest party in the constituency securing 19,916 votes ahead of UML (19,282), RPP (2,201), Maoist Center (695) and Unified Socialist (465) at the ward level in the local election.
NC’s KC was elected from Kathmandu-10 with 14,458 defeating Himesh KC of UML (11,786). Bishankhe secured just 4,260 votes.
Maoist Center had secured the largest number of votes at the ward level in this constituency among the four Kathmandu constituencies where it fielded HoR candidates.
But NC was still the strongest party at the ward level securing 24,675 votes ahead of UML (18,838), Maoist Center (4,942), RPP (2,496), and Unified Socialist (1,342).
Bishankhe, however, secured fewer votes than that the party had received at the ward level in the local election.
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