KATHMANDU, March 7: As the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won 37 seats and is taking the lead in 82 places in the recently held House of Representatives (HoR) elections, a number of the RSP’s candidates defeated their opponents by a wide margin, in some cases as high as 50,000 votes.
While candidates of the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and Nepali Communist Party are far behind in many places, the winning RSP candidates have achieved very wide vote margins. So far, Lekhjung Thapa of the RSP has won by the largest number of votes.
According to the Election Commission (EC), Thapa, a candidate in Rupandehi Constituency No. 3, won the election with a margin of 50,379 votes. While he received 58,814 votes, his nearest competitor, Sushil Gurung of the Nepali Congress, received only 8,435 votes.
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Similarly, in Rupandehi 2, RSP candidate Sulav Kharel defeated the nearest competitor, Vice-President of CPN-UML Bishnu Prasad Paudel, by 43,689 votes. Kharel received 56,550 votes, while Paudel, who is also the former finance minister, secured 12,861 votes.
In Morang Constituency No. 6, RSP candidate Ruveena Acharya defeated the top leader of Nepali Congress, Shekhar Koirala, her closest competitor, by a margin of 42,663 votes. Acharya received 55,513 votes, while Koirala secured only 12,850 votes.
RSP President Ravi Lamichhane also won in Chitwan 2 with a margin of around 40,000 votes, defeating Nepali Congress candidate Meena Kharel by 39,838 votes. Lamichhane received 54,402 votes, while Kharel was limited to 14,564 votes.
In Chitwan-3, Sobita Gautam of RSP won by 38,662 votes over her nearest competitor. Sovita received 59,277 votes, while Nepali Communist Party candidate Renu Dahal secured 20,615 votes.
Likewise, RSP senior leader Balendra Shah secured victory in Jhapa-5, leading UML President KP Oli by around 39,000 votes. Vote counting, however, is still ongoing.
According to EC records so far, Govinda Panthi, who won in Gulmi-2, has the lowest margin among the winning RSP candidates. Panthi won with only 561 votes more than his nearest competitor, securing 16,967 votes compared to 16,406 votes for UML Vice-President Gokarna Bista.
Similarly, Som Sharma, who won in Baglung 2, is another RSP candidate who won by a small margin. Sharma secured 12,674 votes, while his nearest competitor, Tekraj Paudel of Nepali Congress, received 11,006 votes, giving Sharma a margin of 779 votes.
