• Some UML district leaders arbitrarily named poll candidates keeping the party’s Bara district in-charge in the dark

Bara, June 18 Internal conflict among leaders and cadres of the CPN-UML has marred  the selection of candidates for the upcoming civic polls, in different wards of Jitpursimara and Kalaiya Sub-metropolitan cities in Bara. The party’s central member and district in-charge Balbir Chaudhary said those who were picked as poll candidates from the party without his knowledge would not be allowed to run in the elections. He said some district leaders from the party arbitrarily named candidates for different wards of the sub-metropolis. He claimed that the candidacies would now be rendered invalid as he had already discussed the matter with the party’s province committee and central committee. Earlier, the party’s province committee had formed a mechanism led by Chaudhary to recommend the names of possible party candidates for the polls. The committee comprises Dinesh Rai as deputy in-charge and Achyut Mainali, Purushottam Poudel and Sundar Bishwokarma as members. The province committee said the selection of candidates without the consent of the district in-charge would not get legitimacy. It has a provision that the province committee should endorse the recommendation of the district mechanism with approval of the district-in-charge. Province committee coordinator Satya Narayan Mandal said the recommendation made by Bishwokarma lacked legitimacy as the district-in-charge had not approved the recommendation. Meanwhile, a meeting of the ward committee at Jitpursimara Sub-metropolitan City has demanded action against Bishwokarma and Rai for arbitrarily picking candidates for the civic polls slated for June 28. Tara Karki, a local party leader, said that their meeting on Friday decided to write to the party’s central committee in Kathmandu for action against the duo on ethical grounds. Considering the dispute, the ward committee meeting also decided to urge the central committee to finalise the names of candidates from the party for the second phase of  local level elections for the wards in question.