Rajbiraj, November 30

Madhesi parties, which grabbed five out of six seats in the first Constituent Assembly polls, are working to regain their past glory in the provincial and parliamentary polls slated for December 7 in Saptari district.

As they could not win even a single seat in the last Constituent Assembly polls, Madhes-centric parties are working to regain their past credibility in the district.

In the first CA polls, Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum-Nepal had clinched victory in Constituencies No 1, 2, 4 and 6 while Sadbhawana Party won the seat in Constituency No 3. An independent candidate had won Constituency No 5. However, they failed to win even a single seat in the second Constituent Assembly polls. CPN-Maoist Centre had clinched victory in Constituencies No 1, 2 and 3 while NC had won Constituency No 5 and 6 and CPN-UML had triumphed in Constituency No 4 in the last CA polls.

For the December 21 polls, four constituencies have been fixed in Saptari. This time, joint candidate of Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal and Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal Surya Narayan Yadav are vying for parliamentary seat from Constituency No 1.

FSF-N’s chairman is in the fray in Constituency No 2, RJP-N’s Chandrakant Chaudhary and the party’s senior Vice-chairman Mrigendra Kumar Singh Yadav are in the fray in Constituencies No 3 and 4 respectively.

NC’s Ramdev Sah and the left alliance’s Ashok Kumar Mandal are in the fray in Constituency No 1, while left alliance’s Umesh Kumar Yadav and independent candidate Jaya Prakash Thakur are vying in Constituency No 2.

Likewise, the left alliance’s Tarakant Chaudhary and NC’s Dinesh Kumar Yadav are fighting the polls in Constituency No 3 while the left alliance’s Mohammad Islam and NC’s Tejulal Chaudhary are contesting in Constituency No 4.

Madhes-centric parties anticipate a verdict in their favour because they played a leading role in the Madhes agitation.

RJP-N’s Saptari Coordinator Sunil Kumar Jha claimed that people would vote for them to establish their agenda. Jha claimed that as 11 people were martyred in the Madhes agitation from Saptari they would clinch victory in the polls.

Nepali Congress Saptari President and candidate for Constituency No 3 Dinesh Kumar Yadav said that people would vote for his party as his party had a history of fighting for democracy for a long time.

The left alliance candidate in Constituency No 2 Umesh Kumar Yadav claimed that Saptari residents would elect leftalliance candidates for their struggle to provide rights to

the marginalised and downtrodden people.