Kathmandu: Releasing its election report on Monday, CPN-UML, the second largest party in federal parliament and a major coalition partner in the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government, has said that it won the elections with a considerable number of seats despite an all-round siege to defeat the party in the recently held federal parliament and provincial assembly elections.
“Although the elections are held amidst all-round siege in order to defeat the CPN (UML), the UML is only 11 seats behind the Nepali Congress party. The NC-led five-party coalition that besieged the UML has not even received a simple majority in the elections,” says the report.
CPN-UML won a total of 78 seats in the lower house of federal parliament in the elections held in November.
Eight electoral candidates of UML were defeated by a margin of 112 to 430 votes, 14 candidates by a margin of less than 1,079 votes and the number of those who were defeated by a margin of 112 to 3,083 votes is 25, says the report.
Of the 165 candidates for the MPs of the HoR, UML Chair K P Sharma Oli received the highest votes of 52,319 winning from Jhapa-5. Among the winning candidates, Standing Committee Member Krishna Gopal Shrestha received the lowest 11,095 votes. Hom Bahadur Thapa stood first with 24,129 votes and Sher Bahadur Budha secured the lowest 4,743 votes among those winning the elections for the Provincial Assembly.
The report says that UML could not maintain its victory in 46 seats out of 80 that it had won in 2017 elections. Out of those lost (46), 32 seats have been won by the Nepali Congress with the strength of the coalition, Maoist Centre won two constituencies, CPN (US) four, National Independent Party (NIP) three, and RPP, National People’s Front (NPF) and Nagarik Unmukti Party (NUP) won one seat each. CPN (UML) has left one seat each for RPP and Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) to support them in the elections.
The popular votes received by UML are 1.5 percent more than that of Nepali Congress, says the report. In the previous election, the difference between the two parties was only about 0.5 percent with the highest popular votes of CPN (UML) even then. CPN (UML) is ahead with about 16 percent more popular votes than Maoist Centre and the NIP, about 21 percent of the RPP and 24 percent more than CPN (US).
UML received 3,27,853 (6.30 percent) less votes in this election than in 2017. If the 2.83 percent of votes received by CPN (US) are deducted from this (6.30 percent), it will be only 3.48 percent less popular votes of CPN (UML) compared to the elections in 2017. Despite the support of a five-party coalition, Nepali Congress got 413,164 less popular votes in this election than in 2017. “It makes it clear that the popularity of the Nepali Congress has declined by more than seven percent and the popular votes won by the Maoist Centre has decreased by 2.5 percent in this election,” says the report.
According to UML, the party is popular in 44 out of 77 districts.
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