RAUTAHAT, MAY 7

A majority of election candidates running in the upcoming election are same old faces who contested in the last election in Rautahat. Of the total 18 local levels, including two rural municipalities, 14 local levels have election candidates most of whom had contested in the past election of 2017 as well.

Lokatantrik Samajbadi Party's Ajaya Kumar Gupta in Gaur Municipality, Nepali Congress's Dhirendra Prasad Singh in Rajdevi, Arun Kumar Sah in Durga Bhagawati Rural Municipality and Shyam Prasad Yadav in Gadhimai and Ramsneshi Yadav in Brindaban are the candidates who had also fought in the past election. Similarly, Janata Samajbadi Party's Santalal Chaudhary in Gujara, Anil Kumar Yadav in Garuda and Rabibranjan Yadav in Baudhimai, NC's Gopal Yadav in Fatuwa Bijayapur and Shekh Wakil in Paroha, and CPN- UML's Rina Kumari Sah in Maulapur, Santosh Kumar Mehata in Ishanath and Siyaram Kushwaha in Katahariya are also repeated faces.

Four local levels - Chandrapur, Rajpur, Dewahi Gonahi and Yamunamai - have new faces contesting for the chief of the local levels. While NC's Sanjaya Kafle is contesting in Chanrapur Municipality, JSP has fielded former mayor Dharmendra Patel's wife as the mayoral candidate this time in Dewahi Gonahi.

While NC's decision to field Kafle has got its veteran leader Ramchandra Chaudhary to file his own candidacy as an independent candidate, JSP's decision to settle on former mayor's wife for the top post of the local level by ignoring many other deserving candidates has got the party rank and file here discontent.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 08, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.