Nepali Congress president Gagan Thapa has lost the House of Representatives election from Sarlahi-4 to Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate Amresh Kumar Singh, ending his 18-year parliamentary career.

Final results announced on Sunday showed Singh securing 35,688 votes against Thapa’s 22,831, a margin of 12,857 votes.

Thapa entered parliament in 2008 through the proportional representation system and later won three consecutive elections from Kathmandu-4.

He was elected Congress president in January and had been projected by the party as a potential future prime minister.

Singh, born in Sarlahi, holds a PhD in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India.

He began his political career through Madhesh-based movements and was elected from Sarlahi-4 in the 2013 and 2017 parliamentary elections. After being denied a Nepali Congress ticket in the 2022 polls, he ran as an independent and won the seat.