Mahabir’s personality challenging legacy of mainstream political parties

Santosh Gautam

Myagdi, Feb 22: Election campaigning for the House of Representatives' election is speeding up, with candidates employing innovative ways and processes. From locals providing financial support to candidates to candidates of two parties seeking votes from the same platform and former MPs being honored for fulfilling their election commitments are some new scenes in the district today.

Independent candidate Dr. Mahabir Pun, who has been campaigning in an informal manner, is being spontaneously supported financially by mothers’ groups and locals in various places.

Pun resigned as the interim government’s Minister of Education, Science and Technology and is contesting for the House of Representatives from his ancestral home in Myagdi.

“Although some people talk about distributing money to voters to win the election, on the contrary, voters are supporting me financially,” said Pun, who reached Dhawalagiri Rural Municipality-6, Marang during the election campaign. “So far, I have received Rs. 1.5 million in support. I will make the amount of support received public after the election.”

Meanwhile, in Annapurna-1, two candidates from different parties sought votes from the same platform a few days ago.

UML candidate Harikrishna Shrestha and CPN (Maoist Center)'s Kshetra Bahadur Ghimire (Biplap) used the same platform to meet voters and express their views in Dowa. 

As the voting date approaches, political parties and candidates in the district have intensified their campaigning. As candidates have started going door-to-door and holding election rallies leaders and cadres' activity in rural areas has increased. Candidates have also made social media a medium of election campaigning.

In the House of Representatives election, which has one constituency, Karna Bahadur Bhandari (KB) of the Nepali Congress, Harikrishna Shrestha of the UML, Arjun Thapa of the Nepali Communist Party and independent candidate Dr Mahabir Pun are seen as the main competitors, says political analyst Laxman Sharma.

He said that it is considered as a competition between the organizational legacy of the political party candidates, evaluation of past works and Mahabir's personality. The district with six local levels has 86,397 voters to be distributed among 82 polling centres and 120 polling stations.

The candidates of the district have expressed their commitment to maintain good governance by making public service delivery technology-friendly, eliminate red tapism, and include the feelings, demands and needs of the district residents in the laws, budget and plans.RSS