ROLPA, March 6: Pushpa Kamal Dahal, coordinator of the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) and a former prime minister, has been elected to the House of Representatives (HoR) from Rukum (East).
According to the final results, Dahal secured 10,240 votes, defeating his closest rival of CPN-UML Lilamani Gautam, who received 3,462 votes. Kusum Devi Thapa of the Nepali Congress (NC) came third with 3,081 votes.
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Other candidates trailed far behind. Lakhan Kumar Thapa of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) obtained 819 votes, while Sandeep Pun of the Prajatantrik Loktantrik Party secured 203 votes. Juddha Bahadur Budha of CPN (Maoist) received 191 votes and Chandra Bahadur Shahi of Janamorcha got 32 votes.
Rukum (East), once a key stronghold during the Maoist insurgency, has long been considered politically favourable to Dahal. He had travelled to the district during the election period as part of his campaign to secure the seat.
Since the 2008 Constituent Assembly election, Dahal—widely known as Prachanda—has contested parliamentary elections from several constituencies, including Rolpa, Kathmandu, Siraha, Chitwan and Gorkha.
Out of 34,772 registered voters in the constituency, 19,188 ballots were cast, recording a 55.18 percent voter turnout. Of the total votes cast, 9,024 were from male voters and 10,164 from female voters.
Rukum (East) comprises three rural municipalities and 31 wards.
