Daman Bahadur Bhandari of the CPN-UML has been elected as a member of the Sudurpaschim Assembly.

Bhandari, who garnered 11,613 votes, defeated his closest rival Abhishek Bahadur Singh of the Nepali Congress in the by-polls in Bajhang (A) with a margin of 267 votes. Singh obtained 11,346 votes. Janak Bahadur Budha of the CPN (Maoist Centre) finished third with 3,831 votes while Dil Bahadur Singh of the CPN (Unified Socialist) got 2,514.

A total of 30,337 votes were cast in the by-election held on Saturday.

Speaking to the Post after his election victory, Bhandari said that he would work effectively to address the basic problems of people in his constituency. “I will try my best to improve the image of the provincial assembly,” he said. Bhandari is the chairman of UML’s Bajhang district committee.

Eleven candidates contested for a seat in the Sudurpaschim Assembly which remained vacant after Prithvi Bahadur Singh, an assembly member and provincial minister, died in a road accident in June last year. The Congress fielded Prithvi Bahadur’s son Abhishek in the election.

Prithvi Bahadur, a Congress leader, was a common candidate of the Congress, Maoist Centre and the Unified Socialist as the parties forged electoral alliance in 2022. He had garnered 17,112 votes. UML’s Afilal Okheda finished second with 13,376 votes.

Bajhang, a mountain district of Sudurpaschim Province, is historically a stronghold of the UML. The Congress won the constituency only in 1999 and 2022. The UML regained the provincial seat from Bajhang (A) within two years.

Meanwhile, in Ilam bypolls for a House of Representative seat, UML’s candidate Suhang Nembang has widened the lead by a margin of 6,628 votes.

As of 10:30 pm on Monday, Nembang received 21,380 while Dambar Khadka of the Nepali Congress trails him with 14,752 votes.

Independent candidate Dakendra Singh Limbu has maintained the third place garnering 10,146 votes while Milan Limbu of the Rastriya Swatantra Party has managed to secure 3,609 votes.

While Nembang has consistently maintained the lead, Khadka and Dakendra have a neck to neck competition for second place. Dakendra, a long-time UML leader, threw his hat in the ring as a common candidate of various ethnic groups espousing identity politics. Milan Limbu, a former Maoist cadre, joined the Rastriya Swatantra Party just ahead of the election. The two candidates—Dakendra and Milan—were closely watched as they fought the elections representing new support bases.

Dakendra garnered one-sided votes from Larumba, the hometown of Kirant priest Aatmananda Lingden, which lies in ward number 5 of Mangsebung Rural Municipality-5. He garnered a total of 1,032 votes, Suhang obtained 69 votes, Khadka got 49 votes while Milan garnered just 3 votes in the ward.

Contrary to hype, the Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate has performed rather dismally in the by-election. The Rabi Lamichhane-led party failed to give a tough challenge to the traditional political forces—the Nepali Congress and the UML—in the constituency. However, a good number of people have recognised Dakendra’s agenda of identity politics.

The Ilam-2 House of Representatives seat went vacant after former Speaker Subas Nembang died of a heart attack in September last year. The UML leader had continuously won from the constituency since the 1999 general elections. The CPN-UML fielded Suhang, Subas’s son, as the party’s candidate in the constituency.

In Ilam-2, a total of 115,889 individuals were eligible to cast votes, but only around 69,287 voters took part in the elections on Saturday.