With two pullouts by contenders for the leadership positions – Sushil Pyakurel from the post of chairman and Surendra Pandey from the post of secretary – there are 16 candidates to fill eight positions – one chairman, three vice-chairmen, one general secretary and three secretaries. Now the contenders for the chairman are Jhala Nath Khanal and KP Sharma Oli. Other contenders are divided along Khanal-Oli lines.
Pandey, who is close to Khanal, withdrew his candidacy to leave three others from the Khanal panel (Ram Chandra Jha, Yubaraj Gyawali and Rajendra Shrestha) to be elected for the secretary’s job. Oli’s side has Bishnu Poudel, Shankar Pokharel and Raghubir Mahaseth for the same.
| Post | Candidates | |||
| Chairman | Jhala Nath Khanal | KP Sharma Oli | ||
| Vice-chairman | Bam Dev Gautam, Sahana Pradhan, Ashok Rai | Bhim Rawal, Bidhya Bhandari, Bharat Mohan Adhikari | ||
| General Secretary | Ishwar Pokharel | Pradip Nepal | ||
| Secretary | Ram Chandra Jha, Yubaraj Gyawali, Rajendra Shrestha | Bishnu Poudel, Shankar Pokharel, Raghubir Mahaseth | ||
After Ashok Rai, a contender for the post of vice-chairman, switched camp from Oli to Khanal, the erstwhile UML chief has Rai, Bam Dev Gautam and Sahana Pradhan as candidates for vice-chairman. Likewise, Oli has Bhim Rawal, Bidhya Bhandari and Bharat Mohan Adhikari for vice-chair’s post.
Ranju Thakur, a member of the Election Committee, told myrepublica.com that 63 candidates for the 115-member Central Committee have pulled out of race, leaving the number of contenders at 396.
Though candidacy for the post of chairman by Khanal and Oli was a foregone conclusion, Pyakurel, who is also a president of a human rights NGO called Insec, despite having no chance at all of winning the coveted post, had come to the fray at the eleventh hour on Saturday. Pyakurel had said his candidacy was a sign of protest against the leaders´ failure to come up with a consensus candidate for the coveted post of chairman.
Though the voting was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, the time has been extended twice and they have said the polling will open at 2 p.m.
4 elected to the central committee unopposed
On the other hand, four UML leaders have been elected to the central committee unopposed. The Election Committee declared Lalit Basnet, Urba Dutta Pant and Netra Panthi as full members of the committee, and Chudamani Jangali as an alternate member. Basnet and Jangali – both being central leaders of the UML-affilaited trade union, GEFONT (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions) – were elected under the reservation quota for laborers.
Pant and Panthi have been elected UML CC member from Mahakali and Lumbini zones, respectively, after no other candidate filed their candidacy for the allotted one full CC member for each zone.
tilak@myrepublica.com
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