RSP’s Lamichhane and Dr Wagle win by-election with a wide margin

Published On: April 26, 2023 07:37 AM NPT By: Republica | @RepublicaNepal

JSP Chairman Yadav is leading in Bara-2 as vote counting is currently underway

KATHMANDU, April 26: Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President Rabi Lamichhane and the party’s candidate Dr Swarnim Wagle have won by-election held on Sunday with a wide margin.

While President Lamichhane won from Chitwan Constituency-2, Dr Wagle, who recently joined the RSP after quitting Nepali Congress (NC), won the election from Tanahun-1. Vote counting in Bara-2 was underway as Republica went to press on Tuesday evening. Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) Chairman Upendra Yadav is ahead of his nearest rival Shiva Chandra Kushwaha of Janamat Party by a thin margin.

RSP President Lamichhane won the election with 54,176 votes. He defeated his nearest rival Jit Narayan Shrestha of the Nepali Congress by a huge margin of 42,962 votes. Shrestha got 11,214 votes. Similarly, UML candidate Ram Prasad Neupane, who secured third place, got only 10,936 votes. A total of 78,634 votes were cast in the constituency but only 78,466 votes were declared valid.

Lamichhane got almost five thousand more votes than in the previous election held on November 20 last year. He had then received 49,300 votes.

Similarly, RSP candidate Dr. Swarnim Wagle won the by-election with a wide margin in Tahanu-1.

While Wagle got 34,480 votes, his nearest rival Bhattarai got 20,092 votes. CPN-UML's Sarbendra Khanal, who trailed behind in third place, received 8,555 votes.

There are 123,305 voters in Tanahun-1. More than 65,000 votes were cast in the by-election held on Sunday. Wagle secured more than 52 percent of the total valid votes cast in the by-election.

Wagle, who recently quit the NC and became a candidate for the House of Representatives from RSP, defeated NC candidate Govinda Bhattarai by 14,388 votes. NC candidate Bhattarai, who trailed behind Dr Wagle, got 30 percent votes.

Ramchandra Paudel was elected from NC in Tanahun-1 in the parliamentary election held on November 20. After he became the president, a by-election was held to elect a new member from his constituency.

In the November election, Paudel won by getting 25,361 votes. At that time, Ek Bahadur Rana Magar of UML had received 19,981 votes, Govinda Raj Joshi, who ran as an independent candidate, had received 6,886 votes and Bikas Sigdel of RSP had received 6,044 votes.