The Nepali Congress is looking to regain the support of around a million voters it lost in the March 5 election, with a greater role for young people seen as key to rebuilding its popular base. 

Party president Gagan Thapa says winning them back is now his main task, and that this will require changes inside the party and a larger presence of Gen Z in its ranks.

"Our priority now is to reconnect with the voters we have lost," Thapa said in an exclusive interview with Kantipur on Friday. "This time, we lost around a million voters. Around 250,000 families left, saying, 'Congress is not our choice.' We have to bring them back."

The figures support his claim. The Congress received 1,749,583 votes under the proportional representation system in the March 5 election, out of 17,039,115 valid votes cast under that system. In 2022, the party received 2,715,255 proportional votes. 

The party's seat count fell as well. It won 38 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives, making it the second-largest party, while the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won 182 seats. In 2022, the Congress had won 57 first-past-the-post seats and 32 proportional seats, a total of 89, and became the largest party in the House. 

Thapa rejected allegations that voters had left because of his leadership. "We lost our voters and we failed to attract new ones," he said. 

He traced the problem to the decade after the constitution was promulgated in 2015. "We became focused on power struggles, gaining power and reaching government," he said. "Even when we were outside government, a mindset developed that we were in government and running it ourselves. This is where the Congress departed from its tradition."

Thapa said the party can no longer rely on its past record to win over young people. "It is no longer enough to say what the Congress has done," he said. "We have to attract the younger generation by showing what the Congress can offer and what it can do. We have to make 18- and 19-year-olds feel that Congress is the party that will carry their issues."

He said young people will not bring about a change without being involved in the party. "Young people will not see a change in the Congress until Gen Z has a substantial presence in the party," Thapa said. The party's special general convention ensured the representation of young people, and Thapa said he expects this to make them feel the party is theirs too.

"When Gen Z sees that the Congress is a party where people from their age group have equal participation and where they can see faces like their own, then a change begins."

Thapa also pointed to a generational gap in how the party communicates. "One generation does not even understand the language of another. My daughter does not understand my language, and I do not understand hers."

To incorporate Gen Z into its leadership, the party is expanding its office-bearer positions and introducing reserved seats. The 15th general convention of the grand old party begins on Sunday.

Alongside the push for youth representation, the party plans to enforce a two-term limit on its presidents. Thapa said he and Vice-president Bishwa Prakash Sharma will each serve no more than two terms. "We want to make this a culture," he said.

The party also intends to increase representation of women and of different castes and communities, and to keep drawing on the experience of its first-generation leaders.

On the need to manage dissent, Thapa said one group of dissatisfied leaders supports former president Sher Bahadur Deuba. "However, I do not see party unity merely in terms of bringing together those who are central members," he said. "My priority is what those well-wishers and supporters think."

The party is still trying to persuade Deuba to attend the general convention as chief guest.

Thapa also wants to change the ambitions of the new recruits. Young people aged 20–21 have joined the Congress, he said, and the party wants to change "their thinking that they must become mayors, lawmakers or ministers".