BIRGUNJ, MARCH 12
Birgunj Metropolitan City Mayor Bijay Kumar Sarawagi defected from the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal and joined the CPN-UML today.
Sarawagi was elected mayor of the metropolis from Janata Samajbadi Party (then Federal Socialist Forum Nepal).
CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli welcomed Sarawagi to his party at a function organised in the metropolis today.
Oli, who came to participate in the wedding ceremony of National Medical College proprietor Jainudin Ansari's son, had welcomed Sarawagi to his party with garlands. Birgunj Metropolitan City Ward 14 Chairman Manoj Kalwar, Chairman of Ward 25 Abadh Kishor Kusahawa and CPN-Maoist Centre leader Baburam Kaushik, among others, also joined the CPN- UML.
Sarawagi, who entered politics from business background, said that he had joined the CPN-UML after some Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal leaders and cadres had put him in trouble.
He had talked to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba about joining the Nepali Congress.
But after the district-level NC leaders did not cooperate with him, Sarawagi had joined the CPN-UML.
Welcoming Sarawagi into the UML, KP Oli said that his party would resolve the people's problems and usher in development and prosperity.
"UML is a party committed to build the country. Ours is the party for raising and solving peoples' problems and addressing national issues," Oli added.
He claimed that his party would emerge as the first largest party from the next polls.
Joining the CPN-UML, Sarawagi said racism was still rampant in Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal and good leaders could not survive in the party.
Samajbadi party's politics is of race and ethnicity. Politics of race and ethnicity will not make the party a national one," Sarawagi stated.
Sarawagi said that he had joined the CPN-UML not the Nepali Congress due to Motilal Dugad. "Dugad arranged the meeting with Oli and as a result I joined the UML," he recounted.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 13, 2022, of The Himalayan Times
