Nepal Elections: RSP’s lead increases, Lamichhane wins big from Chitwan!

Initial trends of Nepal elections show that the country is going to get a Prime Minister of Gen-Ji’s choice. Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) PM candidate Balen Shah is leading with huge votes. RSP President Rabi Lamichhane has been elected to the House of Representatives from Chitwan Constituency-2 of Nepal with a huge margin. The RSP has won most of the seats in this year’s parliamentary elections and is currently leading across the country.

Lamichhane won with 54,402 votes, while her nearest rival, Meena Kharel of Nepali Congress, got 14,564 votes.

This is the third time that former media personality turned politician Lamichhane has won from the same constituency. Chitwan has remained a stronghold of RSP in the last three years. Lamichhane was first elected to the lower house from the same constituency in the 2022 parliamentary elections. However, he later lost his MP status after the Supreme Court of Nepal declared his citizenship certificate invalid.

On January 27, 2023, the court stripped Lamichhane of his parliamentary seat. The court ruled that the RCP president had used his old invalid citizenship to contest elections without re-applying for a new citizenship after renouncing his US citizenship. Following the verdict, Lamichhane lost his position as MP, his role as Home Minister and the chairmanship of his party.

Subsequently, in the April 2023 by-elections, he contested the elections again and was re-elected to the House with an even higher vote share than before.

In the last three years, before entering politics in 2022, Lamichhane has also faced controversies over alleged frauds related to cooperative institutions. Till a few months ago, he was in custody and was released by court order shortly before the March 5 elections.

His collaboration with rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah has proven to be a masterstroke. RSP has already won 20 seats and is leading in 95 of the 165 seats contested under the first-past-the-post system. Balen Shah is leading in the race against former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in Jhapa-5 of Eastern Nepal.

Traditional political parties including Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) are currently trailing far behind the RSP in the ongoing vote counting.