ITAHARI, Dec 1: Nepali Congress (NC) leader and Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Gyanendra Bahadur Karki has been elected to the House of Representatives from Sunsari-4 with a thin margin of just 112 votes.

Karki was elected for a second time by defeating UML's Jagdish Kusiyat from the UML-JSP alliance. Karki got 30,483 votes while Kusiyat got 30,371 votes. Karki was elected from Sunsari-4 in the elections of 2074 as well.

This time, for the November 20 elections, there was competition between 25 candidates for the House of Representatives seat from Sunsari-4, in which 12 independent candidates and 13 political party candidates were competing. On the first two days of counting (November 21 and 22), Karki took the lead. For the next three consecutive days, UML's Kusiyat maintained a stable lead. Then on November 26, the counting of votes was postponed after the NC suspected rigging. By the time counting stopped, Karki had received 23,439 votes while Kusiyat had received 23,341 votes.

Even after holding an all-party meeting, Karki filed a complaint with the Election Commission. After the Election Commission decided to continue the counting of votes on Monday evening, the counting started from four o'clock in the afternoon after an all-party meeting was held on Tuesday morning. When the counting resumed on Tuesday, it was difficult to predict who would be victorious since Karki and Kusiyat were continuously switching between first and second place. It was only possible to speculate the win during the last phase of vote counting.

Karki is known as a confidant of Prime Minister and president of Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba. Karki has become a minister several times during the Congress-led government.

NC's Karki lost from Bhojpur by a small margin in the parliamentary elections of 2056 and the first Constituent Assembly elections of 2064. He was a proportional candidate in the second Constituent Assembly election. In the 2074 election, Karki won by defeating UML's Ramesh Shrestha by a margin of 6,597 votes.

UML's Kusiyat, who was defeated by Karki this time, is the party in-charge of Sunsari district. He lost by a narrow margin in 2051 when he contested the election against the late leader Girija Prasad Koirala. He was victorious in the 2053 by-election. After winning from 4 'A' in the year 2074, Kusiyat also became the Minister of Forests, Environment, Industry and Tourism in the UML-led government in Province 1.

Girija Prasad Koirala won from Sunsari-4 in the year 2048, in the midterm elections of 2051 and in the parliamentary elections of 2056 from constituency no.5. UML's Kusiyat won the by-election in 2053. Girija Prasad Koirala's daughter Sujata was defeated in the first Constituent Assembly election of 2064.

Federal Socialist Forum Nepal Chairman Upendra Yadav won the first and second Constituent Assembly elections. In the 2074 election, Congress leader Gyanendra Bahadur Karki won by defeating UML's Ramesh Shrestha by a margin of 6,597 votes. This time, Karki won in a difficult manner.

Khadananda Mandal of Nepali Congress has won 4 'A' in the provincial election. Mandal won by defeating JSP's Parshuram Basnet, who became a common candidate of the UML-JSP alliance.

In province 4 (A), 13 candidates were contesting. UML's Jagdish Kusiyat won from 4 'A' by getting 16,690 votes in 2074.

Haji Dr. Israil Mansuri has won from 4 (b). He won by getting 14,358 votes. His closest opponent, UML's Abbas Ansari, got 12,212 votes. In 2074, Tahir Miya of Nepali Congress won from 4 (b) by getting 11,825 votes.

So far, NC has won one HoR and two provincial assembly seats in Sunsari out of six HoR and eight provincial assembly seats. UML has won two HoR seats. In one HoR seat, the candidate of JSP has won. Similarly, UML candidates have won six province assembly seats.

 
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