The main opposition Nepali Congress failed to pick its candidates for the bypolls in Ilam and Bajhang on Wednesday as well.

The Election Commission is holding the by-elections for a House of Representatives seat in Ilam-2 and a provincial seat in Bajhang (A) on April 27.

The party had discussed potential candidates on Tuesday but, after failing to make any headway, deferred its meeting to Wednesday.

But the meeting of the parliamentary board failed to take the decision on Wednesday too, said Min Bishwakarma, head of the party’s publicity department. He said the meeting on Thursday will finalise both the candidates.

As the two rival factions of the party stand divided, the main opposition has been struggling to select its candidates for the by-polls.

At Wednesday's meeting, party president Sher Bahadur Deuba proposed Dambar Khadka as candidate for Ilam-2 but the party general secretaries, Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma, stood in favour of Bhesh Raj Acharya, according to the party leaders. Khadka had narrowly lost the 2022 parliamentary election to CPN-UML leader Subas Nembang.

Nembang had defeated his closest contender, Khadka, of the Nepali Congress, by just 114 votes. While Nembang garnered 30,020 votes, Khadka, a common candidate of the Congress-led alliance, managed to get 29,906.

At the Wednesday meeting, Deuba said that since Khadka lost the elections with a narrow margin, the party should give him another chance, which would do him justice. But Thapa, Sharma and other leaders argued that since the scenario in Ilam has changed a lot since November 2022, the party should field a stronger candidate.

General Secretary Sharma recently visited Ilam to take stock of the situation on the ground. He said that he found Acharya a stronger candidate than Khadka.

“We have asked all seven candidates who were recommended for the Ilam constituency and the party’s provincial committee to be present at the meeting and discuss who would be a better candidate,” a board member said. “We will take the decision after listening to them.”

On Tuesday also, Thapa, Sharma and Shekhar Koirala told Deuba that since Khadka is a tested and failed candidate, the party should field Acharya, who is popular at the grassroots level, for a better chance of winning, said another member of the central work execution committee. “But Deuba refused to accept Acharya’s name.”

Of the seven names recommended as possible candidates for the Ilam bypolls, Acharya and Khadka stood on top.

Khadka, the party president in Ilam, is from the Deuba faction.

Meanwhile, for the Bajhang provincial bypolls, Deuba had forwarded the name of Abhishek Singh, which was also rejected by the Thapa-Koirala camp.

The dispute in the Congress comes at a time when other parties like CPN-UML and the Rastriya Swatantra Party have already announced their candidates. They have started door-to-door campaigns in both federal and provincial constituencies. The UML has picked Suhang Nembang as its candidate in Ilam-2 and the RSP Milan Limbu. The other ruling party, CPN (Maoist Centre), is likely to support UML candidate Nembang.

“The locals and our party leaders and candidates say Acharya has a better chance of winning the election,” Koirala and Thapa reportedly said at the meeting. In Bajhang, Jagat Joshi’s chances are said to be strong for the party candidate.

The Ilam-2 House of Representatives seat has been vacant since the demise of former Speaker and Constituent Assembly chairman Subas Chandra Nembang in September. The UML leader had continuously won the constituency since the 1999 general elections.

The Bajhang seat remains vacant after Prithvi Bahadur Singh, an assembly member and provincial minister for internal affairs and law, died in a road accident in June.