Major Shift in Lumbini Province Election Results: CPN-UML Suffers Steep Decline, RSP Gains Traction

Butwal. CPN-UML has emerged as the party that suffered the biggest defeat in the recently concluded House of Representatives elections in Lumbini Province. A significant change in the seat count of major parties is visible when compared to the 2079 election results.

CPN-UML, which was the leading party in the province in the 2079 elections, has now dropped to fourth place. CPN-UML, which won 11 seats in the previous election, is now limited to just 1 seat. Top leaders of CPN-UML, including Bishnu Prasad Paudel, Shankar Pokharel, Gokul Bista, and Pradeep Gyawali, along with other influential candidates, were defeated. Similarly, the Nepali Congress, which was in second place in the previous election, has also seen its seat count shrink. Congress, which won 6 seats in 2079, is now limited to 2 seats. 

Only Sandeep Rana (Palpa-1) and Abhishek Pratap Shah (Kapilvastu-3) from the Congress were elected in Lumbini Province.

Likewise, CPN (Maoist Centre), which won 3 seats in the previous election, is now limited to 2 seats. The Maoist Centre maintained its traditional influence by securing victories in Rolpa and Rukum East districts.

In the Dang district's Constituency No. 2, where Maoist leader Rekha Sharma won in the last election, this time the candidate from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Bipin Acharya, emerged victorious. Chandra Bhandari (Gulmi-2), Surendra Acharya (Kapilvastu-2), Kishore Singh Rathore (Banke), Sanjay Kumar Gautam (Bardiya), Deepak Giri (Dang), and Binod Chaudhary (Nawalparasi), who were elected from Congress in the last election, were all defeated this time.

The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which won 3 seats from this province in the previous election, has fallen to zero in Lumbini Province this time. Madhesi parties have also been left without representation in the province.

This time, the Rastriya Swatantra Party achieved remarkable success, winning 21 seats in Lumbini Province. Not only in direct elections, but CPN-UML and Congress also received fewer votes in the proportional representation category compared to the previous election. CPN-UML Lumbini Province Chairman Radhakrishna Kandel told Ratopati that the party dropped from first to fourth place due to the unexpected shift in voter sentiment. He informed that a detailed review of the election is underway and the party will conduct an overall assessment once the constituency-wise reports arrive.

Ishtiaq Rai, Who Saved CPN-UML's 'Seed'

Three leaders who switched parties before the election and became candidates for CPN-UML were in the electoral field. 

Pramod Yadav (Rupandehi-4) and Birendra Kanoudia (Kapilvastu-3) had left Congress to join CPN-UML, while Ishtiaq Rai contested from Banke District Constituency No. 1 for CPN-UML after leaving the Janata Samajbadi Party. However, Yadav and Kanoudia were defeated. Rai, however, won from Banke-1. He has become the only directly elected member of parliament from CPN-UML in Lumbini Province. Rai, born in 2036 BS, has continued his streak of winning elections by changing various parties. He won with 24,626 votes. 

In that constituency, RSP candidate Vivek Kumar Shrestha received 18,581 votes, and Nepali Congress's Sudhans Koirala received 17,590 votes.

With this victory, he has successfully entered parliament for the third time.