Former vice-chairman of CPN-UML, Surendra Pandey, has not been recommended as a candidate under the first-past-the-post system for the House of Representatives election scheduled for March 5.
The Chitwan-1 constituency coordination committee did not include his name in the recommendation list. There is growing curiosity as to why Pandey, who recently lost the race for general secretary at the party's 11th general convention, was excluded from his own home constituency.
A meeting of the constituency coordination committee held on Sunday recommended the names of district chair Kamal Raj Pathak, Dawa Dorje Lama, Krishna Lal Chaudhary, Kishor Chandra Khanal, Bharat Bhandari, and Laxmi Koirala Pokharel as candidates. The list will be forwarded to higher committees for final selection.
Pandey, a former finance minister who was elected twice from Chitwan-1 in 2013 and 2017, notably missed out on the list this time.
Pandey claimed that the district committee had not contacted him regarding the nomination. However, he mentioned that other leaders like Jagannath Thapaliya, Dawa Dorje Lama, Prem Dawadi, and Prabha Baral had reached out to him.
“They asked what they should do. I told them to manage things accordingly,” Pandey told Setopati. “It’s for the members of the constituency coordination committee to understand. Party Chairman KP Sharma Oli surely didn’t ask to include his name in Jhapa-5, nor did Vice-chairman Bishnu Paudel ask to recommend his name from Rupandehi-2 and 3.”
In the previous election, too, Pandey’s ticket was finalized only at the last minute. He lost the election to Hari Dhakal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP).
Meanwhile, district chair Kamal Raj Pathak claimed that they had asked Pandey but he said he had no interest in contesting the election.
"There is no question of us not asking a senior leader from our constituency. He said that he was in Nepalgunj and wouldn’t be able to come,” Pathak told Setopati. “We then asked him whether he wanted to be a candidate. He said that he wasn't interested and suggested sending names of those who could secure more votes."
Pathak said that the district committee would discuss the names recommended by the constituency coordination committee. He added that if Pandey expresses interest in being recommended as a candidate, the district committee would still have no problem including his name.
“Names have come from the lower committee. We will discuss them at the district level. The district committee can reduce the list or add new names before forwarding it to the higher committee,” he said.
