Nepali Congress recommends candidates

Bhaktapur, Oct 31 : The Bhaktapur chapter of ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is having a tough time to recommend list of potential candidates for by-polls scheduled for November 16.

The difficulty has been surfaced in choosing by-election candidate for State Assembly member in Bhaktapur electoral constituency-1 (A) when there was larger number of aspirants to contest election from the NCP.

The frequent meetings of the NCP Bhaktapur held since last week has failed to finalize the name list of its candidates.

NCP district leader Som Prasad Mishra said the party secretariat is facing tough time to pick candidates when a name list of 18 aspiring candidates was submitted to the district committee.

As the party was supposed to make consensus on limited number of candidates to the possible extent, the higher number of expectants has made it tough for the ruling party to take decision.

He further informed that today’s meeting would try its best to pick only one candidate in consensus. The party would send name list of three persons if it fails to forge consensus on one and if consensus is not made on three as well there would be no option to recommend all 19 aspirants.

The electoral constituency has remained vacant after the demise of State Assembly member Hari Sharan Lamichhane due to brain hemorrhage in 2018.

Among the aspirants from NCP for by-poll election are Ramesh Budhathoki, Mohanbir Shrestha, Ram Bahadur Shrestha, Shambhu Dahal, Damodar Dangal, DP Dhakal, Nirmala Lamichhane and Shreebhakta Kasichhwa.

However, main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) has sent a name list of 10 aspiring candidates to the central committee despite big number of aspirants.

Though the central committee had directed to recommend three candidates, the NC Bhaktapur has sent the list due to higher number of aspirants and failure to make consensus on candidates in the district meeting.

NC Bhaktapur has sent the names of Yadav Adhikari, Manoj Thapa, Kiran Kafle, Uddhav Khadka, Krishna Lal Bhandel, Subhadra Kafle, Rupa Thapa, Hari Nepal, Binod Kayastha and Suresh Shrestha with recommendation to the party central committee.

It may be noted that the then CPN-UML candidate Harisharan Lamichhane had won the last state assembly election with 12,789 votes while his close contender Jeevan Khatry from NC got 9,977.