Dharan Mayor Harka Sampang is preparing to contest the House of Representatives election from Sunsari-1 on March 5, 2026.
Sampang, who became the mayor of Dharan Sub-metropolitan City as an independent candidate in the 2022 local elections, has already registered the Shram Sanskriti Party under his leadership with the Election Commission.
After the party’s registration, many have been curious whether Sampang will run for office himself or simply support other candidates.
When we spoke with Samir Tamang, a close aide of Sampang and a central member of the Shram Sanskriti Party, he confirmed that Sampang will contest the House of Representatives election from Sunsari-1.
Responding to Setopati’s question about whether Mayor Sampang plans to run in the upcoming parliamentary election, central member Tamang said, “He will definitely run. He has already begun preparing for it.”
The party’s General Secretary RN Rai also confirmed that Sampang, who is also the party’s chairman, is preparing to contest the election from Sunsari-1.
“It is true that he is preparing to contest the election from Sunsari-1,” said General Secretary Rai. “If circumstances don’t change by then, he will certainly contest.”
According to central member Tamang, who is considered part of Sampang’s core team, the mayor is prepared to resign from his position to contest the election in March.
“He will resign from the mayor’s post before registering his candidacy,” Tamang said. “Along with him, our party is preparing to field candidates in all constituencies across the country.”
Sampang, who had long been active in Dharan as a social activist, achieved success in the 2022 local election. At the time, independent candidate Sampang won the mayoral election with 20,821 votes. Kishor Rai of the Nepali Congress came second with 16,059 votes, and Manju Bhandari of the UML came third with 12,825 votes.
Sampang also contested the local by-election in Dharan in 2019, but he received only 422 votes.
After winning as an independent candidate, a motivated Sampang launched a voluntary labor campaign to expand drinking water sources in Dharan. That campaign made him more popular. Since that time, he had been preparing to form his own party. He eventually registered a party after the Gen Z movement.
The Sunsari-1 constituency, from which Mayor Sampang plans to contest the election, includes all 20 wards of Dharan Sub-metropolitan City, wards 1 to 5 of Barahachhetra Municipality, and wards 6 and 7 of Ramdhuni Municipality.
In the 2022 House of Representatives election, Ashok Rai of the Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal was elected from Sunsari-1 with support from the UML. Rai received 17,059 votes; Goma Tamang of the Rastriya Swatantra Party came second with 16,606 votes, and Muksamhang Subba of the CPN (Maoist Center) came third with 13,087 votes.
Sunsari-1 is considered a traditional stronghold of the UML.
In 1991, Manmohan Adhikari won from this constituency; in 1994, Lila Shrestha Subba; and in 1999, Kunta Sharma.
In the first Constituent Assembly election of 2008, Maoist candidate Kiran Kumar Rai was elected. In the second Constituent Assembly election in 2013, Krishna Kumar Rai of the UML won, and in 2017, Jay Kumar Rai of the UML was elected. At that time, he was a candidate of the left alliance, which included the Maoists.
In 2022, after the JSP forged an electoral alliance with the UML at the last moment, the UML left the constituency for Ashok Rai.
