The areas included in Kathmandu-1 were in another constituency before 2008.
In the parliamentary elections of 1991, 1994, and 1999, the wards currently included in Kathmandu-1 were part of different electoral districts. It only came into existence during the delineation of constituencies for the First Constituent Assembly Election in 2008. This area has remained a Nepali Congress (NC) stronghold since coming into the new form.
NC leader Prakash Man Singh had been consistently winning from this region, though he had failed to secure victories in elections prior to 2008. He was defeated by CPN-UML leader Sahana Pradhan in Kathmandu-4 in 1991. In the mid-term election in 1994, he faced defeat against the then UML chairman Manmohan Adhikari in Kathmandu-3. From 1996 to 2002, he served as a member of the National Assembly.
Once Kathmandu-1 was formed by covering the area from Thapathali to Baneshwor, he was elected continuously winning two Constituent Assembly and two parliamentary elections between 2008 and 2022. While he secured grand victories in the first and second Constituent Assembly elections, Singh faced tough challenges in the last two parliamentary elections from Rabindra Mishra, the Senior Vice Chairman of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), who contested from different parties in those two elections.
Kathmandu-1 consists entirely of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) wards, specifically wards 10, 11, 29, and 31. An analysis of local level election results shows a strong base for NC in these wards.
In the 2017 local elections, NC won wards 10, 11, and 29, while UML won only ward 31. The same result was repeated in the 2022 local elections. However, when analyzing the total votes received by ward chairs, UML does not appear weak. UML has consistently won ward 31, which has the largest voter base among the four.
In 2017, UML's Narayan Prasad Bhandari won with 4,297 votes, and in 2022, UML's Saroj Dhakal was elected with 4,767 votes. In the last election, when combining the total votes of ward chairs within Kathmandu-1, NC led by a slim margin securing 9,895 votes compared to UML’s 9,541. Despite this, UML has lagged significantly behind in parliamentary elections in this constituency.
In the First Constituent Assembly Election, Singh defeated UML’s Pradip Nepal. While UML was a close competitor then, it failed to remain a primary contender in the Second Constituent Assembly election in 2013 where Singh defeated Maoist candidate Renu Dahal. UML's Vidya Neupane came third.
A left alliance was formed between UML and the then CPN (Maoist Center) in 2017, and Anil Sharma became the common candidate. But he also finished third. During that election, Rabindra Mishra of the then Sajha Party challenged Singh and lost by a margin of just 818 votes. Singh secured 10,936 votes while Mishra received 10,118.
The 2022 election saw an interesting battle with 30 competitors, including Singh from NC, Mishra from RPP, Kiran Paudel from UML, Pukar Bam from newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), and Ramesh Kharel from Nepal Sushasan Party. Again, the main competition was between Singh and Mishra, while the newly formed RSP did not enter the top competition.
Mishra trailed by just 125 votes as Singh was elected with 7,143 votes against Mishra’s 7,018. Bam of RSP came third with 4,115 votes, followed by UML’s Paudel (3,532) and former DIG Ramesh Kharel (3,124).
NC also led in the proportional representation (PR) votes in this constituency receiving 6,991 votes, followed by RSP with 5,618, RPP 5,072, and UML 3,793.
For the upcoming election on March 5, 30 candidates are competing in Kathmandu-1. Considered the smallest constituency in Kathmandu in terms of voter base, it has 48,489 voters with 22 polling stations and 57 centers.
NC has fielded Prabal Thapa, an active face within the party and the current secretary for the provincial assembly constituency in Kathmandu-1 this time with the new party leadership elected by the Special General Convention not giving ticket to Singh.
Thapa, who was previously a PR candidate for the Bagmati Provincial Assembly, comes from a family with political ties. He is the nephew of RPP leader Kamal Thapa and the son-in-law of former CIAA chief commissioner Lokman Singh Karki.
NC believes Thapa can win in the constituency which carries the political legacies of Madan Bhandari, Manmohan Adhikari, and Prakash Man Singh.
Meanwhile, Mishra, nursing the political wound of losing twice by thin margins, is making his third attempt to secure a win. Originally a journalist who founded the Sajha Party and later merged with Bibeksheel Party, Mishra eventually joined RPP after internal party conflicts in the unified Bibeksheel Sajha Party.
Holding the political view of ‘Nation above Notion’, Mishra has positioned himself as a staunch monarchist, advocating for a ‘new understanding’ between the former king, political parties, and Gen-Z.
Interestingly, RSP has fielded Ranju Darshana, a well-known face from social movements, as its candidate. She entered politics through the Bibeksheel Nepali campaign led by Ujjwal Thapa and was briefly in the same party as Mishra after the Bibeksheel-Sajha merger.
The 30-year-old Darshana gained fame in 2017 when she ran for mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City finishing third with a respectable tally of 23,439 votes. In 2022, after the Bibeksheel campaign splintered, she ran as an independent from Kathmandu-5 but received just 600 votes.
She later became general secretary of Bibeksheel Sajha Party before it merged with RSP. Initially on the PR list, Darshana withdrew her name to contest directly.
Currently eight and a half months pregnant, she is conducting door-to-door campaigns, hoping to make this election a confluence of motherhood and victory. Many see the sight of a candidate in the final stages of pregnancy campaigning as a unique aspect of this election.
To challenge the others, UML has fielded Mohan Raj Regmi, a former accounting professional and former president of the Nepal Auditors' Association (AUDAN), hoping to win based on the strength of their grassroots organization.
Additionally, the Nepali Communist Party has fielded Menuka Bhandari (Kritu), a former journalist and social activist known for her work repatriating the bodies of Nepalis killed in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Other candidates include Prakash Naiju from Janata Samajwadi Party Nepal, Mangal Lal Shrestha from Ujyalo Nepal Party, and Sameer Lama Tamang from Shram Sanskriti Party.
Who will emerge victorious from this intense competition between old and new parties in this small constituency remains a subject of great public interest.
