KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 11

The four-party ruling alliance today issued a joint press release asking rebel candidates to withdraw their candidacies before 1:00pm tomorrow or face expulsion from their respective parties.

Prime Minister and President of Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba, Chair of CPN-Maoist Centre Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Chair of CPN (Unified Socialist) Madhav Kumar Nepal, and Chair of Rastriya Janamorcha have signed the joint statement asking rebel candidates to withdraw their candidacies. The Election Commission has given candidates until 1:00pm tomorrow to withdraw from poll fray.

Senior Advocate Chandra Kanta Gyawali said the ruling alliance was within their right to take punitive action against rebel candidates. 'In multi-party democracy, parties have the right to discipline their cadres and when their cadres file candidacies against official candidates of their parties, the parties concerned have the right to take disciplinary action against rebels. Such action can include warning letters, suspension, or expulsion from their parties,' Gyawali added.

Political analyst Jay Nishant said the ruling alliance's new warning to rebel candidates was an attempt to maintain the spirit of the alliance, as well as to address political ambitions of their cadres. 'Although many rebel candidates who have made up their mind will not withdraw, but some might do so after negotiating with their political leadership extracting promises of opportunities they could get in the future,' he added.

Many candidates of the ruling alliance face threat from rebel candidates. In Sarlahi-4, former Nepali Congress lawmaker Amresh Kumar Singh has filed candidacy against Nepali Congress' official candidate Nagendra Kumar Ray; former minister Govinda Raj Joshi plans to contest against NC leader Ramchandra Paudel in Tanahun-1; NC cadre Damodar Bhusal has filed candidacy in Gulmi-2 against CPN (Unified Socialist) candidate Ram Kumari Jhakri, who is the candidate of the ruling alliance. These are only a few examples of rebel candidates posing challenges to official candidates of the ruling alliance. There are many such cases across the country.

On November 20, voters will elect 165 House of Representatives members under the first-past-the-post election system and 330 provincial assembly members under the FPTP system.

A total of 2,526 candidates, including 2,291 men, have filed nomination papers for the first-past-the-post parliamentary elections and 3,476 candidates, including 3,178 men, have filed nominations for provincial assembly FPTP seats.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 12, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.