The Nepali Congress has issued a circular to its provincial, district, and House of Representatives constituency committees setting out eligibility criteria for candidates.
The National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 25, 2026, and the House of Representatives elections for March 5, 2026.
For these elections, the party has instructed its lower-level units to collect names of aspiring candidates and recommend them.
The circular, issued by NC Chief Secretary Krishna Prasad Paudel, has also set the criteria for candidates. According to the criteria, anyone who has not paid the party levy will not be made a candidate at any level.
The party has directed that only three aspiring candidates be recommended from each constituency.
The party’s criteria also state that individuals convicted of caste-based discrimination, domestic violence, child labor, or any other form of social anomaly will not be eligible to become candidates.
Similarly, the party has decided not to field those who became members of the House of Representatives or provincial assemblies under the proportional representation (PR) system in the 2022 elections, or whose names were on the PR closed list, as candidates this time.
Furthermore, the circular states that those who were elected as people’s representatives from the party in the 2022 local elections cannot be recommended as candidates.
