Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) candidate for Kathmandu-3 Raju Pandey has been asserting that individuals who served as ministers in the interim government should not be allowed to contest the elections.
He has been raising this issue consistently during interviews with various media outlets.
Chairman of Ujyalo Nepal Party Kulman Ghising is contesting from the same constituency as Pandey. Ghising served as the energy minister in the government led by Sushila Karki.
After stepping down from his ministerial post, he became chairman of the newly formed Ujyalo Nepal Party and filed his candidacy for the House of Representatives (HoR) from Kathmandu-3.
Pandey has been questioning the integrity of individuals who were mandated to conduct the elections but have instead entered the race as candidates themselves. In a video shared on social media, he remarked that an interim government is supposed to be impartial and untouched by political parties, questioning how those with a mandate to hold elections could simply leave to contest them.
When asked by Setopati why he was specifically targeting his competitors by claiming former interim ministers should not be candidates, Pandey clarified that while the law may not explicitly forbid it, it is a matter of ethics for those in a supposedly neutral government. He stated that he is not claiming they are legally barred from running, as he has no authority to override the law, but he questioned the fairness of individuals leaving a neutral government to join political parties as soon as the election cycle begins. He argued that those serving in an election government should ideally complete the election process before departing, framing it as a moral question rather than a legal one.
Ghising is not the only minister from the interim government currently in the electoral race. Interestingly, Bablu Gupta and Jagadish Kharel, who are also candidates from RSP like Pandey, left the government to join the election campaign. When confronted with this fact, Pandey maintained that his question applies to everyone who left the government to contest the elections, not just members of other parties.
He added that he has not yet had the opportunity to raise this concern within his own party but plans to bring it up during a future party meeting.
Pandey had resigned from the post of city police chief of Kathmandu Metropolitan City to contest the March 5 election.
