Leaders prefer Provincial Assembly over HoR in Gandaki

From Surya Prasad Panday/Ramesh Poudel

Pokhara, Nov. 6: While leaders across the country are vying for a seat in the federal House of Representatives (HoR), party members in Gandaki Province seem more interested in obtaining victory at the provincial level.

All three major parties Nepali Congress, CPN (UML) and CPN (Maoist Centre) have put forth some of their most influential leaders as candidates for Gandaki’s Provincial Assembly.

Congress, for instance, has nominated Surendra Pandey from Gorkha Constituency 2 ‘B’ despite the fact that the local party chapter had unanimously recommended that he be made a candidate for the HoR.

Pandey was moved to the province after Maoist Centre, which is Congress’ coalition partner in the present government, decided to field its chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ from the Gorkha constituency. 

Dahal, for his part, has publicly stated that, in return for giving up the HoR, the ruling alliance has promised to make Pandey the chief minister of Gandaki if he wins. During a rally held in Gorkha last week, he said that he had also talked with Prime Minister and Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba about it.

Congress has also made Shukra Raj Sharma, who worked as party’s president in Kaski for two decades and is currently its provincial head, a candidate for the Provincial Assembly through the proportional representation (PR) system. He is a former member of the National Assembly as well.

It has also put forth central member Dhruba Wagle’s name through the PR system as a member of the Khas-Arya community. According to Dipendra Sharma, a Gandaki provincial member of Nepali Congress (NC), Wagle is also a contender for the position of the province’s chief minister.

NC has made Rishikesh Tiwari, former chief secretary of its party office, a candidate from Parbat Constituency 1 ‘B’. 

Similarly, Maoists have made Gandaki’s former Minister for Internal Affairs and Communication Hari Bahadur Chumang a candidate for the Provincial Assembly from Tanahun. His party claims that he can be the province’s chief minister if he wins the election.

But Bindu Kumar Thapa, Gandaki’s current minister for Law, Communication and Provincial Assembly Affairs and NC candidate from Kaski 2 ‘B’, is also in the race for the chief ministership.

Former federal minister Khagaraj Adhikari is also running for the Provincial Assembly from Kaski 1 ‘A’ from the main opposition UML. Adhikari, who has served as Home and Health minister in the federal cabinet, chose to run at the provincial level to clear the way for his party’s district chair Man Bahadur Gurung to contest for a seat in the HoR.

But the party is fielding Jamindra Man Ghale from Lamjung Constituency 1 ‘A’ as the prospective chief minister of the province.