By Our Reporter
The by election results, though went in favour of the ruling Nepal Communist Party, could not satisfy both the ruling and Opposition parties.
The situation of smaller parties, including the much-talked-about Sajha Party, was worse further as they could not garner votes even in four digits.
Although NCP won 30 of the 52 posts in the by elections, it lost the seat of State Assembly in Bhaktapur and the mayoral post of Dharan to Nepali Congress.
It was for the first time the NC could win election in Dharan. And groupism in NCP is blamed for the defeat.
Moreover, the results showed that the former UML and the Maoist Centre were not actually unified. This is also evident from the elections of ward chairs in Bharatpur Metropolitan City and Ghorahi Municipality. Obviously, the former Maoists did not vote the former UML candidates and vice versa.
The NC which had expected to cash in on the growing frustration among the people also failed to fare well in the by-election. It won only 13 seats, and failed to retain six seats of ward chairs and one post of deputy chair of a rural municipality. But NC fared well in Chitwan winning the seats of ward chairs even in the constituency of NCP chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
According to the Election Commission, ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) won 30 seats, including one seat in the House of Representatives and one seat in the State Assembly.
Main opposition Nepali Congress won all together 13 seats, including the much-talked about mayor in Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City and other local bodies. Terai centered parties RJPN (3) and Socialist Party (4) won seven seats in total. One candidate of Rastriya Janamorcha won in the backing of ruling NCP.
NC leader Tilak Rai won the seat of mayor in Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City with 26709 votes. Rai’s victory broke the frontier of lefts after years because Dharan used to be the core area of communists.
Khim Bikrum Sahi of Rastriya Janamorcha won in Bagling-2(B) with 11235 votes for seat of State Assembly member. Similarly, Bimala Kumari Khatri from NCP won the election to State Assembly in Dang-3(B).
Bidhya Bhattrai of the ruling party, as was expected ,won the election with 24394 votes in Kaski. She was fighting for the post of member in House of Representatives. Bhattarai defeated NC candidate Khemraj Paudel with a big margin. Bhattrai is the wife of late minister of tourism and civil aviation Rabindra Adhikari. Adhikari was killed in a chopper crash.
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