KATHMANDU, March 16: The major parties of the dissolved House of Representatives (HoR) have stayed conspicuously silent about their defeats in the recent elections.
While parties, including the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML, held meetings to finalize names for the proportional representation (PR) list, none addressed the party’s poor electoral performance publicly.
Following the results, leaders and party workers have split into factions supporting or criticizing leadership, yet discussions about the election losses were notably absent from party meetings.
UML Deputy General Secretary Lakhraj Bhatta said the party is conducting a grassroots-level review and preparing a report. He told journalists that the secretariat meeting on Saturday, held to finalize PR names, did not discuss the party’s defeat.
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Bhatta explained that since Chair KP Sharma Oli was observing a period of mourning, a formal review could not take place. “We did not touch the review part anywhere,” he said. “Every plan is reviewed at its conclusion. The center does not need to give instructions for this.”
He added that the party must acknowledge the reality that its past work, including the events of September 8 and 9, was not properly communicated to the public—an oversight that contributed to the unfavorable results.
In this election, the UML won only nine direct seats and secured just 13.46 percent of votes in the proportional system. The party finalized the names of 16 PR members on Saturday. UML was the second-largest party in the dissolved HoR; in the previous election, it had won 45 direct seats and 34 PR seats.
The NC, the largest party in the dissolved HoR, also suffered a heavy blow. In the 2022 election, the NC had won 57 direct seats, but this has now fallen to 18. Its PR tally dropped from 32 seats to just 20.
To finalize the names of these 20 PR members, the NC convened a Central Work Execution Committee meeting on Sunday afternoon. While the names were settled, no discussion about the party’s defeat took place. After the meeting, spokesperson Devaraj Ghimire said that since the election process is not yet fully complete, a review would be conducted soon at a central committee meeting.
NC general secretaries have directed subordinate bodies to submit a detailed review report explaining why the party fell short of expectations by March 17. The directive also called for the immediate formation of district and provincial disciplinary committees, in line with Article 34 of the Party Statute. Compared to the previous election, the NC lost around one million PR votes, now standing at 16.27 percent.
The silence is not limited to NC and UML. Parties ranging from the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal—who entered mainstream politics 19 years ago through a violent movement—to the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) have held meetings to finalize PR names, but none commented on their losses. In the previous House, the CPN (Maoist Centre) had won 18 direct seats and 14 PR seats, totaling 32. This time, the party merged with other factions, including the CPN (Unified Socialist), to form the NCP.
Even parties that had previously won seats in 2022 but now failed to secure any in both direct and PR categories have avoided discussions about their defeat. The exception is the Ujyalo Nepal Party, established after the election was announced. On March 13 and 14, it reviewed its election experience at its central office and concluded that organizational expansion would now be its main priority.
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), established just six months before the 2022 election, emerged as the largest party in the HoR this time, securing nearly a two-thirds majority. It won 125 direct seats and 57 PR seats with 47.80 percent of the proportional vote. In 2022, the RSP had won only 8 direct seats and 13 PR seats. For its 57 PR seats this time, the RSP finalized names from various clusters: 17 from Khas Arya, 16 from Indigenous Nationalities, 9 from Madheshi, 8 from Dalit, 4 from Tharu, and 3 from Muslim communities—48 women and 9 men.
Similarly, the Shram Sanskriti Party, established after the election date was announced, won three direct seats. It secured four PR seats with 385,902 votes (3.57 percent) and finalized the names of the four members on Saturday.
