By Our Reporter
The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has weakened over the years because of the power-centric politics of its former chairman Kamal Thapa has emerged as a powerful force in this election. The party that failed to become a national party in 2017 and won only one seat under the first-past-the-post election system won seven seats this time under FPTP and may win 7 more under the PR category, with 14 seats in total in the 275-member House of Representatives. This progress RPP made under the leadership of new chairman Rajendra Lingden.
Likewise, RPP won seven seats in the Bagmati Province Assembly and five of them from Kathmandu. Both seats of the provincial assembly in Kathmandu-2 went to RPP while it won each one in Kathmandu-5, 7 and 9. The win of RPP from Kathmandu in the province assembly shows its growing popularity in the capital city.
Likewise, the party won two each in Province 1 and Lumbini provincial assemblies. The party will add a few more seats in the provincial assemblies under PR category.
While Thapa gave more emphasis to reach power even by giving its ideologies of monarchy and Hindu Kingdom, the party faced an existential crisis in Thapa’s leadership. But now, it has been revived and could play an important role in the formation of the new government.
The party that failed to meet the threshold of 3% in 2017 received nearly 6 per cent votes this time and became the fifth largest party.
“Bell” how it rings, let’s wait and see
The biggest surprise of this election was the emergence of the Rabi Lamichhane-led Rastriya Prajatantra Party as the fourth biggest force in national politics.
Within five months of its formation, the party created a wave in elections, especially in the densely populated areas in the Kathmandu Valley and Chitwan. It won seven seats in the House of Representatives- four of them from Kathmandu, two in Chitwan and one in Lalitpur.
Its young candidates defeated heavyweights like Maoist leader and sitting Minister Pampha Bhusal in Lalitpur, former Speaker Onsari Gharti in Kathmandu-2, Minister Jeevan Ram Shrestha in Kathmandu-8 and NC leader Bhimsen Das Pradhan in Kathmandu-6. In Chitwan, its candidates defeated NC’s Umesh Shrestha and Biswanath Paudel, both close aides of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s wife Arzoo Rana. RSP candidates also caused the defeat of other leaders, mostly NC ones, in other districts as well.
More surprising is that RSP got over 1 million votes under PR category. The votes they garnered were from the frustrated voters of NC and UML. It is widely believed that the NC’s traditional voters voted in the ‘Bell’ as they did not like the faces included by NC in its PR list. The NC supporters were so angry when they saw Arzoo Rana, Manju Khand and Prakash Sharan Mahat in the party’s PR list that they either did not go to vote or voted ‘Bell’ in place of ‘tree’.
However, it is still obscure as to what course the ‘Bell’ will take after emerging as a meaningful force in the parliament.
There are many arguments regarding the funding and backing of it. As the party has not fielded candidates for Province Assemblies, many of its supporters seemed to have voted for RPP in Province Assembly. It is evident from the fact that RPP candidates won in the Province Assembly from where RSP candidates were elected to the House of Representatives. RPP won five seats in Province Assembly in Kathmandu because of the votes it received from ‘Bell’. And this has suspected many whether the party was working for the monarchy.
The citizenship dispute of its chair Lamichhane is linked with the USA and a few suspect whether the party was backed by the USA. No matter for whom it works, it has emerged as a force thanks to the non-performance of the big parties.
UML, the winner of the 2022 polls
The CPN-UML has emerged as the actual winner in the elections to the House of Representatives and Province Assemblies this time. Despite a five-party syndicate against the UML, the latter emerged as the second largest party winning 44 seats in the House of Representatives, 11 less than the seats won by Nepali Congress under the first-past-the-post election system. Likewise, the UML emerged as the largest party in three of the seven provinces. It became the biggest party in the Provincial Assembly of Province-1, Madhes and Lumbini under FPTP category. The five- party alliance could not prevent the UML candidates from winning more seats. Thus, the actual winner of the election in UML.
In 2017, when the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre contested the elections by forging an alliance, NC won only 23 seats in the HoR and negligible seats in all seven provinces under the FPTP. But UML won double the NC’s seats of 2017 in the HoR and topped the list in three provinces. However, if the ruling parties give continuity to the present alliance, the UML will remain out of power both in the centre and provinces.
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