Economist Swarnim Wagle, who quit Nepali Congress (NC) citing continuous humiliation and bullying by NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and his wife Arzu and joined Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), seems to be the firm favorite in the by-election in Tanahu-1.
Wagle, who has been supported by former joint general secretary of NC Govinda Raj Joshi who had secured 6,886 votes in November 2022, seems to be well ahead of Govinda Bhattarai, a former chief of the student wing of the grand old party, in the constituency that became vacant after NC’s Ram Chandra Paudel was elected president. CPN-UML’s Sarbendra Khanal looks set to come a distant third with Wagle winning votes from both NC and UML voters.
Setopati reached all the wards in the constituency, which includes two municipalities and three rural municipalities, and talked with 755 voters about the upcoming by-election, their preferred parties/candidates, the reasons for their preference, and the most important issues for them, among other things.
The constituency includes the whole of Vyas and Bhanu municipalities, the whole of Bandipur rural municipality, and more than half of the wards of Devghat and Abu Khaireni rural municipalities.
A whopping 366 (48.5%) of the 755 voters Setopati talked to said that they would vote for RSP’s Wagle while 219 (29%) said that they would vote for NC’s Bhattarai.
Seventy-seven (10.2%) of them said that they would vote for former Nepal Police IGP Khanal of UML while only three (0.4%) pledged to vote for RPP’s Shobha Gurung. Ninety (11.9%) of the voters said that they had yet to decide who to vote for.
A total of 448 out of the 755 voters Setopati talked to said they had voted for Paudel, who was elected securing over 25,000 votes in November 2022, while 213 of them said they had voted for Ek Bahadur Rana Magar of UML, who had finished second with almost 20,000 votes. Tellingly, 177 of the 448 who had voted for Paudel and 106 of the 213 who had voted for Magar said they would vote for Wagle this time.
Wagle, on the other hand, seems set to retain almost all the 6,044 votes that RSP’s Bikash Sigdel had secured in November 2022 with all 51 who said they had voted for Sigdel saying they will again vote on bell.
Setopati also found 11 who said they had voted for Joshi, who had secured almost 7,000 votes, around five months back and nine of them said they would vote for Wagle which is in line with the decision of Joshi to support another NC defector. One of those 11 pledged to vote for NC and the other was undecided about whether to vote for NC or Wagle.
Many supporters of CPN (Maoist Center) who had voted for the common coalition candidate Paudel in November said they would not vote again for the common coalition candidate Bhattarai and would vote for Wagle instead.
The fact that Setopati found just 213 voters who said they had voted for UML in November 2022 to 448 who said they had voted for NC despite the eventual victory margin of just over 5,000 for Paudel shows that traditional UML voters have been under-represented in this survey. But that still will not affect the overall projection that makes Wagle the overwhelming favorite as UML also seems to be significantly leaking votes to Wagle.
Wagle seems to be riding high on his reputation as a pre-eminent economist at a time when the country’s economy is facing problems. He is also benefiting from the personal popularity of RSP President Rabi Lamichhane.
Many voters also seem to see the Supreme Court (SC) verdict ruling Lamichhane to be ineligible to become lawmaker for not completing the process to re-acquire his citizenship certificate that became invalid after he acquired US citizenship as a conspiracy of big parties against Lamichhane.
The rising frustration of the general electorate toward the established parties also is working in Wagle’s favor.
NC’s Bhattarai is also taken as a leader who has worked at the local level by the voters but that seems to be no match for the popularity and hopes on Wagle and Lamichhane.
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