CPN-UML leader Shankar Pokharel has been elected to the Provincial Assembly from Dang Constituency-2 (A). He was projected as the chief minister of Province 5 during campaigns.

Pokharel garnered 20,723 votes whereas his closest rival Kamal Kishor Ghimire of the Nepali Congress got 11,172.

There were 51,700 listed voters in the constituency but only 36,938 exercised their franchise. In the 1994 mid-term elections, Pokharel was elected to the House of Representatives from one of the constituencies in the district. In the 1999 parliamentary polls, NC candidate Krishna Kishor Ghimire defeated him. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a proportional representation member in 2008. Pokharel was then appointed the information and communications minister.

In the second Constituent Assembly elections held in 2013, he was defeated by

NC candidate Buddiram Bhandari in the then Constituency-4.

Pokharel has said UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and CPN (Maoist Centre) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal had offered him the post of chief minister while fielding

him for the provincial assembly. “My first agenda is to make the province prosperous,” Pokharel said after his victory. Pokharel is a Standing Committee member of the UML.