Rastriya Swatantra Party Surges in Gandaki Polls While Established Parties See Significant Vote Drops

Pokhara. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) emerged as the leading party in both direct and proportional representation contests in Gandaki during the House of Representatives elections held on Falgun 21. The RSP, which won 15 direct seats, nearly tripled its proportional representation votes compared to the previous election. The RSP, which secured 177,000 votes in the 2079 election, surpassed 500,000 votes this time.

Established political parties have suffered significant losses compared to the previous election. The RSP, which registered its presence with 177,025 votes in the last election, received 525,635 votes this time. This is an increase of 348,000 votes compared to the previous election.

CPN-UML, which was in the lead with 324,882 votes for the House of Representatives in the previous election, has shrunk to third place this time. In the Falgun 21 elections, UML received only 152,587 votes. UML lost over 172,000 votes this time. Furthermore, UML had already lost over 43,000 votes in the federal elections compared to the provincial elections in the previous election.

Although slightly better than UML, the Nepali Congress also lost a large share of the proportional representation votes in Gandaki. Congress, which received 312,720 votes last time, was limited to 207,387 votes this time. Congress lost over 105,000 votes in one go. The CPN (Maoist Centre), which received 108,467 votes in the previous election, could not prevent its losses even while contesting under a different name this time.

The CPN (Unified Socialist), whose stronghold is considered to be in the region, did not win any direct seats. In proportional representation, the CPN received 57,876 votes. This is nearly half less than the last election. Similarly, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which received 38,834 votes last time, got 23,556 votes this time. The votes for the Rastriya Janamorcha, which has a stronghold in Baglung, also decreased.

Janmorcha, which received about 10,000 votes federally in the previous election, received 7,770 votes this time. Some new parties secured significant votes in Gandaki. The Shram Sanskriti Party received 18,995 votes.

Other parties failed to become national parties. Their votes were not counted because they did not meet the threshold of 3% required for proportional representation. Voters in Gandaki have consistently emphasized cross-voting in almost every election.