Dhangadi, April 30

All political parties in Punarbas Municipality, Kanchanpur have included addressing border dispute issues in their election agendas for the upcoming local elections.

A man had recently been killed in gunfire by Indian border police force during a border-related dispute in Kanchanpur this year.

The CPN-UML and the CPN-MC have finalised the names of candidates who will be contesting for chief of the municipality. Jivanraj Thapa and Sharada Bista will be running for the post of mayor and deputy mayor respectively for the UML, while Ramesh Thapa is the CPN-MC candidate for mayorship.

Nepali Congress and other parties, however, have yet to announce their candidates.

All these parties have prioritised border dispute issues between Nepal and India as their major election agenda. “Our party will take necessary action to solve border dispute issues if elected,” said UML Punarbas Town Committee Chairperson Sthir Prasad Ghimire.

CPN-MC mayoral candidate Thapa too pledged to do the needful to resolve the border issue.

“Our main priority is to regulate the border between Nepal and India, apart from other development agendas,” Thapa said, urging voters to vote for him and other candidates of the party.

NC Town president Yam Prasad Poudel said his party too was campaigning for election. “Though our party has yet to finalise the candidates, we are carrying out election-related programmes,” he said, informing that the candidates will be finalised in a few days.

“We have planned effective development programmes for the municipality,” he said.