BHAKTAPUR, Nov 22: With several fresh faces filing their nominations for the upcoming parliamentary and provincial elections, an interesting and fierce electoral battle is expected in Bhaktapur. For decades, Narayan Man Bijukche, the president of the Nepal's Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) has been repeatedly claiming victory in the parliamentary elections. So, locals here are keenly waiting to see which new face, if any, owes the election glory this time.

Bijukche first won the parliamentary elections in 1991 and has been repeatedly winning the elections since then. However, he decided to field the secretary of his party Prem Suwal in his place for the upcoming elections. After decades, locals in Bhaktapur will be observing a stiff competition among the fresh candidates. Suwal is contesting parliamentary elections for the first time. In the local elections of 1997, Suwal was elected as the Chief of Bhaktapur Municipality.
  
Similarly, the Nepali Congress (NC) has fielded Babu Raja Joshi while the left alliance has picked CPN (Maoist Center)'s Milan Suwal in the same constituency. Both of them are new fresh faces when it comes to elections. Joshi is a senior advocate and Suwal is the central leader and district co-coordinator of CPN (Maoist Center). In constituency no.1, NC and left alliance have been observed as the major competitor of NWPP.

With the division constituency, NWPP has become stronger in the elections. Bhaktapur Municipality and Changunarayan Municipality fall under constituency no.1 of the district. Both these municipalities are known as the strongholds of NWPP. In the recently held local elections, NWPP's Sunil Prajapati got elected as the mayor of the municipality by garnering 25,568 votes. His closest rival, NC's Ram Prasad Kasula was able to collect only 6,532 votes.

However, in Changunarayan Municipality, CPN-UML's Som Mishra became the mayor by garnering 8,512 votes while his closest competitor NWPP's Nhujebhakta Foju got around 8,000 votes.
 
In the provincial elections, NWPP's Niraj Lawaju will be challenging NC's Jiwan Khatri in constituency 1(a) of the district. Likewise, in constituency 1(b) NC's Anil Bhoju will be competing against NWPP's Surendra Gosain. Furthermore, the left alliance has fielded Haris Sharan Lamichhane in constituency 1(a) and Roman Shilakar in constituency 1(b).
 
As per the details provided by the District Election Office, Bhaktapur, there are altogether 107,899 voters in the district. There are two constituencies for the provincial elections in Bhaktapur. In constituency 1, there are 43,552 voters while there are 50,612 voters in constituency 2.

 
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