NC's Khadgi is deputy mayor
Shakya, a UML candidate, secured 64,913 votes while his nearest rival Raju Raj Joshi of Nepali Congress totalled just 45,269 votes.
KATHMANDU, May 28: CPN-UML candidate Bidya Sundar Shakya has been elected as mayor of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) defeating Nepali Congress candidate of Nepali Congress (NC) Raju Raj Joshi with a wide margin.
While Shakya secured 64,913 votes, his nearest rival Joshi totalled just 45,269 votes. KMC is the second metropolis the UML won in the first phase of the local polls held on May 14.
Similarly, Nepali Congress (NC) candidate Hari Prabha Khadgi has been elected deputy mayor of KMC. She bagged 58,952 votes while her closest rival Raja Ram Shrestha of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) bagged 34,845 votes.
Kathmandu mayor Shakya fails to deliver on his promises
The KMC has 284,000 registered voters. Although the vote counting began on May 15, it took almost 14 days to declare the final results as the vote counting process was too tedious owing to the large sized ballot paper.
KMC's final results were announced on Sunday morning. Of the total 32 wards, the UML won 18 and the NC won all the remaining wards.
The UML and RPP had made an electoral arrangement for contesting mayor and deputy mayor in Kathmandu. As per the arrangement, the UML was to contest for mayor and the RPP for deputy mayor.
Who is Mayor Shakya?
A permanent resident of Lagan area in Kathmandu, Shakya was born on May 23, 1963. Active in politics even before the restoration of democracy in 1990 in Nepal, he was elected as ward chairman during the municipal election under the Panchayat system in 1987.
As political parties spearheaded the anti-Panchayat movement in 1989, Shakya became active in those protests although he was not associated with the then agitating parties. Although he became member of the then CPN-ML after the success of the people's movement that eventually abolished party-less Panchayat system in 1990, Shakya joined the CPN-UML a year later.
In the local elections held in 1992 and 1997, Shakya was elected as chairman of ward 21 of Kathmandu Muncipality from UML ticket. In the May 14 election, Shakya secured over two-thirds of the total votes cast in the ward.
Shakya is UML Kathmandu District Committee Secretary. He holds a bachelor's degree in management from Shanker Dev Campus in Kathmandu.
