KATHMANDU, JANUARY 4
Forty-three candidates from the five-party ruling alliance and opposition parties today filed their candidacies for the 19 National Assembly seats, which are slated to go to polls on January 26.
According to a press release issued by the Election Commission, Gopal Kumar Basnet (Nepali Congress), Jayanti Devi Rai of CPN (Unified Socialist), Hemraj Rai of JSP-N, and Guru Baral, Sumitra Bhandari, and Sonam Goljeng Sherpa of CPN-UML are in the fray for three seats from Province 1. Urmila Aryal (CPN- MC), Mohmmed Khalid (JSP-N), Bina Devi (CPN-UML), and Usman Ansari are contesting polls for two seats from Province 2.
Goma Devi Timilsina (CPN- US), Krishna Prasad Paudel (NC), Nir Kumari Kunwar and Gopal Shakya of the UML, and Gita Kafle and Krishna Bahadur Tamang of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party are in the fray for two seats from Bagmati.
Kamala Panta (NC), Bhuwan Bahadur Sunar and Suresh Ale Magar (CPN-MC), Rajendra Laxmi Gaire (CPN-US), and Lila Pokharel Thanet, Punya Prasad Poudel, Arjun Kumar Sunam, and Bharati Upadhyay Khanal of the UML have filed their candidacies for two seats from Gandaki. Yubraj Sharma (NC), Tul Prasad Bishwakarma (Rastriya Janamorcha), and Krishna Sunar and Ram Dayal Gupta of the UML are contesting for three seats from Lumbini.
Durga Gurung (NC), Nar Bahadur Bista (CPN-MC), Uday Bahadur Bohara and Madan Kumari Shah of CPN-US, and Padam Bahadur Majhi and Chudamani Sharma of the UML are in the fray for three seats from Karnali. Narayan Dutta Mishra (NC) and Jagat Bahadur Parki (CPN-MC), and Kumar Bishwakarma and Dilaraj Bhatta of the UML are contesting for three seats from Sudurpaschim.
The EC will publish the final list of candidates on January 9.
Complaints against the nominees can be filed tomorrow. The EC will act on complaints on January 6 and 7.
The four-year term of 20 NA members will end on March 4 out of which one member will be nominated to the Upper House by the president on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers. The new members will start their tenure from March 5, according to Assistant Spokesperson of Parliament Secretariat Dasharath Dhamala.
The upcoming elections are likely to be a close contest between the five-party ruling alliance and the main opposition CPN-UML.
The five-party ruling alliance recently reached an agreement to divide 19 vacant seats among the coalition partners. According to the deal, Nepali Congress, which leads the current coalition, will contest six NA seats, the CPN-Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) five each, and the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal and the Rastriya Janamorcha one each.
An electoral college of respective provincial assembly members, chiefs, and deputy chiefs of the local levels will vote to elect NA members. Provincial assembly members and representatives of the local levels have different weightage for their votes in the electoral college.
After this elections, all NA members will retire after completing a six-year tenure. Prior to this, one-third NA members retired after two years. This time, another one-third are retiring after four years. There are 59 members in the NA, of which three, including one woman, are nominated by the president on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 5, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
