By Our Reporter
The preliminary vote counting could not be encouraging for the two communist parties of the present ruling coalition—CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist) as their candidates failed to garner expected votes, especially in the urban areas. While all four candidates of the ruling CPN Maoist Centre and two of the CPN (Unified Socialist) in the Kathmandu Valley lost the elections and when other candidates are trailing far behind the other candidates, the two parties blamed the NC for not voting for their candidates. However, the NC candidates received votes from the two parties, whose presence was negligible in the valley, and most of the seats.
Pampha Bhusal of the Maoist Centre was expected to win the poll from Lalitpur 3, but she was left behind by Dr Toshima Karki of the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Onsari Gharti, the former Speaker, lost the election in Kathmandu-2.
Manushi Bhattarai, who was widely expected to win from Kathmandu-7, also suffered a defeat while Kalapna Dhamal of Maoist Centre also lost the election to UML’s Krishna Gopal Shrestha in Kathmandu-9. CPN (Unified Socialist) suffered the biggest setback as its candidate and sitting minister Jeevan Ram Shrestha did not come into competition in Kathmandu-8.
Of the five seats in which the candidates of two candidates had contested the polls, four went to Rastriya Swatantra Party and one to UML.
The two parties have said they were deceived by the NC. However, the reality was that when the non-political youth of Kathmandu voted Rastriya Swatantra Party even by defying their parents, NC could not be blamed. Again, the NC supporters and voters could easily defy the instructions of the leadership, especially in Kathmandu. It was clearly seen in Kathmandu-2 and it was also evident in the local elections of May.
Even outside Kathmandu, Birod Khatiwada of the CPN (Unified Socialist) in Makwanpur, Bina Magar in Kanchanpur and Hitman Tamang in Nuwakot failed to receive the NC votes and were trailing behind as of Wednesday.
Now a question is raised whether the ruling alliance will break as NC voters defied the alliance agreement. Obviously, they have no option as they could not ally with the UML at the moment. More difficult it is for the Unified Socialist. They may remain in the coalition bargaining for the key seats in the government, as the coalition is almost sure to win a simple majority in elections.
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