BRB shirks ‘safe’ Gorkha for Tarai
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GORKHA, OCT 30 -
Bhattarai considers home turf a safer district than tough Rupandehi
The idea behind Bhattarai’s emphasis on the Tarai is simple: he regards Gorkha, where he registered a landslide victory in 2008, a far safer district than Rupandehi, where he is pitted against UML heavyweight and former Cabinet minister, Bishnu Poudel.
On Tuesday, Bhattarai’s supporters were busy in their door-to-door campaign in Gorkha-1, in the absence of their leader. They maintained that the party has a good organisational structure in Gorkha district and they were not unduly worried about complaints of lukewarm campaign.
“It is true that we are strong in Gorkha-1 in comparison to Rupandehi-4,” said Yan Prasad Bhatta, in-charge of Bhattarai’s election campaign here, explaining the Maoist leader’s absence.
Like NC and UML candidates, Bhattarai has not been able to visit most villages, concentrating his campaign mostly in more accessible urban centres and areas closer to motorable roads. Gorkha-1 is spread over a municipality and 17 VDCs.
Party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal is scheduled to visit the district on Friday, but there is an air of uncertainty over the scheduled mass rally. The rival CPN-Maoist has called a strike for the day to disrupt the rally in Prithvi Narayan Municipality.
Dahal’s visit to Gorkha is aimed at wooing the party’s district leaders and Dahal loyalists who are not “cooperating in the Bhattarai campaign.”
Residents of Gorkha would have liked their leader to find more time for their district. “The UCPN (Maoist) has a weak campaign in Gorkha compared to other major parties. Bhattarai has concluded that it’s going to be easy for him to secure a win in Gorkha but will be difficult in Rupandehi,” said Dilip Devkota, Campus Chief at Drabya Shah Bahumukhi Campus in Prithivi Municipality.
As most neighbouring constituencies, Gorkha-1 will see a three-pronged race between UCPN (Maoist), NC and UML.
Kiran Babu Shrestha of the NC is said to be particularly strong in the urban hub, the Prithvi Narayan Munici-pality, which has 14,000 voters. Bhattarai’s appeal is broader—with support in both rural and urban areas. Ram Saran Basnet of the UML is another strong contender there.
In their campaign, both NC and UML candidates are pointing out Bhattarai’s “fault lines” as a national leader. The most often repeated charge against him is how he “engineered the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly” as prime minister.
“Bhattarai is a tested man who failed to deliver when he was prime minister and finance minister,” said NC candidate Shrestha.
In 2008, the UML secured the third position in the district, but its district leaders now claim that with greater political space and openness, their position has significantly improved since 2008.
Though upbeat, NC and UML leaders said the election campaign has become tense in some constituencies in the district since Tuesday. They fear that the Maoists could renew their “intimidation and violence.”
“The Maoist party is setting up camps in some parts of the district and the party’s YCL is increasing its activities. This could create tension in the coming days,” Bisheswor Kattel, UML’s district leader said.
In the 2008 election , Bhattarai had secured 46,272 votes from Gorkha-2, while his rival Chandra Prasad Neupane of the NC secured 6,143 votes. Now, he has moved to Gorkha-1, where the NC’s position is relatively stronger than in other constituencies. Bhattarai’s close aide Biswadeep Pandey admitted the former prime minister has so far concentrated his campaign in the Tarai constituency, and that it was in keeping with the party’s policy to reach out to constituencies in the plains. “Rupandehi-4 is now a prestige issue for our party because the UML has a senior leader against Bhattarai there,” he said. Of the two constituencies that the party chairman has filed his nomination from, one is in Sarlahi in the Tarai.
In 2008, Poudel secured 15,880 votes and Bhakti Prasad Pandey of the UCPN (M) bagged 13,421 votes.
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