By Our Reporter
By-elections are being held in three constituencies of three districts on April 23. The political parties, mostly the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the Rastritya Swatantra Party have made the elections an issue of their prestige and are applying their strength to produce the election results in its favour.
While Nepali Congress is contesting the elections only in Chitwan and Tanahun and has backed Janata Samajwadi Party’s Upendra Yadav in Bara-2, the RSP and the UML have their candidates in all three constituencies. Surprisingly, two ruling parties—the CPN (Maoist Centre) and the CPN (Unified Socialist) have not fielded their candidates but backed NC candidates in Chitwan and Tanahun and Upendra Yadav in Bara.
Rabi Lamichhane of the RSP is contesting the election in Chitwan-2 while Govinda Bhattarai of NC, Sarbendra Khanal of the UML and Swarnim Wagle of the RSP are in the fray in Tanahun. However, it is Wagle who has drawn media attention this time. Similarly, Ramesh Kharel of RSP and Purusottam Paudel of UML are challenging Yadav in Bara-2.
However, the RSP candidates have, of late, in pressure following the leakage of an audio tape in which its lawmakers Dhaka Kumar Shrestha is heard asking for Rs. 20 million with medical businessman Durga Prasai.
The tape has been a big masala for other parties to use against the RSP candidates, who were assumed to be stronger than other candidates in Chitwan and Tanahun. But the audio has damaged their position badly.
All the candidates are busy in their door-to-door campaign and the top leaders have been addressing the mass meetings. UML has mobilized Gokul Baskota in Chitwan while NC has mobilised its general secretaries Bishwo Prakash Sharma and Gagan Kumar Thapa to make the candidates victorious in Chitwan and Tanahun respectively.
Likewise, Shivachandra Kushwaha from Janamat Party has posed a big challenge in Bara-2. Kuswaha was a CPN-Maoist candidate in November last year and lost the election with a margin of fewer than 400 votes. He changed the party and became the Janamat Party candidate this time.
Government intends to endorse TRC bill through fast track, UML denies
At a time when lawmakers and other stakeholders have expressed their dissatisfaction over the Transitional Justice Amendment Bill and a planned approach to endorse it on the fast track method, the main opposition party, the CPN-UML has strongly opposed the government plan to endorse it through the fast track method.
After UML lawmakers and leaders floated their views against passing the Bill through fast track, the Prime Minister recently held a meeting with NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli on the issue. However, Oli reportedly opposed the government plan at Saturday’s meeting and they sat again on Tuesday.
The meeting of the chiefs of the three major parties—CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and leader of the main opposition party CPN-UML KP Sharma Oli was facilitated by Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire.
Earlier, the lawmakers, mostly from the opposition parties, human rights activists and a section of the civil society leaders had said that the proposed bill would not provide justice to the victims if it was endorsed in the form it had been tabled in the House of Representatives.
Login to add a comment