Nominations for NA polls underway. Know candidates

Ratopati January 04, 2022

Nominations for NA polls underway. Know candidates

Ratopati Files

KATHMANDU, Jan 4: Candidate nominations for the upcoming National Assembly (NA) elections are underway in all seven provinces on Tuesday.

The Election Commission (EC) is holding elections for 19 vacant seats of the upper house on January 26.

As many as 20 NA members completed their four-year term on March 4. One of the seats of the 59-member upper house will be nominated by the President on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.

The forthcoming elections will be a close contest between the five-party ruling coalition and the main opposition CPN-UML.

The ruling alliance, on Monday, reached an agreement to divide 19 vacant seats among the coalition partners. According to the deal, Nepali Congress (NC) has been allotted six seats and five seats each to CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist). While Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) gets a seat in the upper house, Rastriya Janamorcha has been allotted a seat from Lumbini Province.

Candidates belonging to the ruling alliance --- Gopal Basnet (Nepali Congress), Jayanti Rai of CPN (Unified Socialist) and Hemraj Thulung Rai of Janata Samajbadi party---- filed their nominations in Province 1.

Guru Baral, Sumitra Bhandari and Sonam Gyaljen Sherpa, on the other hand, have been fielded by the UML in the province.

Two candidates of the UML --- Gopal Shakya and Nir Kumari Kunwar Darlami -- nominated their candidacies in Bagmati Province.

Shakya and Darlami will face a tough challenge by the candidates fielded by the ruling alliance --- Krishna Prasad Poudel of Nepali Congress (NC) and Goma Timilsina of CPN (US).

Similarly, Gita Kafle and Krishna Tamang of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) also filed their nominations in Bagmati.

For three vacant seats in the upper House from Gandaki Province, the main opposition UML’s Punya Poudel, Lila Basnet and Arjun Kumar Sunam filed their nominations on Tuesday.

An electoral college of respective provincial assembly members, chairperson/ vice-chairpersons of rural municipalities and mayors/deputy mayors of municipalities/ sub metropolises and metropolises of the respective provinces will cast votes to elect the members of the upper house.