DHANGADI, OCTOBER 17
A tough fight is expected between CPN-UML's Sudurpaschim in-charge Lekhraj Bhatta and Nepali Congress Sudurpaschim Province President Bir Bahadur Balayar in Kailali Constituency-4.
Bhatta and Balayar have filed their candidacies for member of House of Representatives from Kailali-4 for the polls slated for November 20.
Bhatta is the candidate from CPN-UML while Balayar is the common candidate of the ruling coalition. While Bhatta is contesting the polls from this constituency for the fourth time, Balayar is new to it. The competition is expected to be interesting.
Earlier, Bhatta won the polls twice while he lost the election once. In the first Constituent Assembly polls, Bhatta had won while in the second Constituent Assembly polls, Lekhraj Bhatta was defeated by NC's Dhirgharaj Bhatta. In the last general polls, Lekhraj defeated NC's Kumar Bhandari. Then, he had won the polls with the support of CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre.
Lekhraj had garnered 31,359 votes while his nearest rival had earned 20,960 votes. However, as per the votes earned by parties in the last local polls, the ruling coalition is ahead by around 15,000 votes.
Considering the votes garnered by parties in the last local polls, Balayar's victory seems to be certain. But, it would be too early to make prediction as various factors such as intra-party rift, discontent among party rank and file, dissatisfied voters, and election strategy of the parties will lay the ground for victory and loss.
A version of this article appears in the print on October 18, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
