Rupandehi District to Send Highest Number of Lawmakers to Federal Parliament from Lumbini Province

Butwal. Among the 12 districts of Lumbini Province, Rupandehi district will send the highest number of lawmakers to the Federal Parliament through the recently concluded House of Representatives elections. A total of 12 lawmakers from Rupandehi will represent the House of Representatives through both the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) and Proportional Representation (PR) systems.

According to the proportional representation list submitted by the parties to the Election Commission, 7 lawmakers from Rupandehi will go to the House of Representatives through the PR system. Five candidates have already won through the FPTP election.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won all five constituencies in Rupandehi in the FPTP election, has recommended five names for the PR category. With this, only RSP will have 10 lawmakers reaching the House of Representatives from Rupandehi. In the FPTP elections, Sunil Lamsal from Constituency No. 1, Sulabh Kharel from Constituency No. 2, Dr. Lekhjang Thapa from Constituency No. 3, Kanyou Baniya from Constituency No. 4, and Tofik Khan from Constituency No. 5 were elected from RSP.

For the PR category, RSP has recommended the names of Shraddha Kunwar, Manju Bhusal, Gyanu Paudel, Amrita BK, and Punam Kumari Agrawal from Rupandehi. Shalikram Ghimire, the Lumbini Province Vice-Chairman of RSP, stated that Rupandehi is the district that will receive 10 lawmakers from the party. He added that when combining his party's and other parties' lawmakers, Rupandehi district's representatives will be the highest to go to the House of Representatives from the province.

Among the 12 districts of Lumbini Province, Rupandehi has also been allocated the highest number of constituencies in the FPTP category. Other Terai districts in Lumbini have 2 to 3 constituencies, while the hilly districts have one or two constituencies. Rupandehi has 5 constituencies. Similarly, due to receiving many PR lawmakers, this district has become the district sending the most lawmakers from the province.

The Nepali Congress has recommended Ganga Shahi and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has recommended Tahir Ali for proportional representation lawmakers. All recommendations from RSP and Congress are women, while the candidate recommended by RPP is male.

Tahir Ali, recommended as a PR lawmaker from RPP, is a resident of Rohini Rural Municipality in Rupandehi. The party recommended him under the Muslim quota.

Likewise, Ganga Shahi, a resident of Tilottama in Rupandehi, has been recommended as a PR lawmaker by the Congress. Although UML showed a strong influence in Rupandehi in past elections, this time no UML candidate reached the House of Representatives through either the FPTP or PR system.

The Nepali Congress, which had zero representation from Rupandehi in the last election, will secure one lawmaker through the PR category this time.