The Election Commission is found to have approved the closed list of candidates submitted by the Rastriya Janata Party, Nepal for Proportional Representation election in Province 2, although the party nominated candidates only from the Madhesi community.
The Election Commission is found to have approved the closed list of candidates submitted by the Rastriya Janata Party, Nepal for Proportional Representation election in Province 2, although the party nominated candidates only from the Madhesi community.
This will deny representation of other communities in the PR seats won by the RJP-N in Province 2 Assembly. According to Clause 13 (3) of the Directive on Provincial Assembly Elections, the parties need to ensure 6.61 percent candidates from indigenous nationalities, 4.89 percent from Khas-Aryas, 5.27 percent from Tharus, 17.29 percent from Dalits, 54.36 percent from Madhesis and 11.58 percent from Muslims in the province “as far as possible”.
As the directives fail to make the provision mandatory, the RJP-N fielded candidates only from the Madhesi community. “Obviously, we took advantage of this provision to field candidates only from the Madhesi community,” admitted Keshav Jha, an RJP-N leader. “The EC has also approved the list.”
RJP-N is the only party in the province submitting the list of candidates only from a single community. In the PR elections, the RJP-N has secured 10 seats in Province 2. Going by the population composition, a party winning 10 seats should set aside one seat for indigenous nationalities, one for Tharus, two for Dalits, five for Madhesis and one for the Muslim community. “There are no candidates from Tharu and indigenous communities on our list,” admits Jha. The RJP-N had fielded 42 candidates for the proportional representation category of state 2 assembly.
Jha said that the RJP-N may not elect candidates from Dalit women and Muslims from among the Madhesi candidates because of a restrictive provision in the directive.
Asked about the issue, an official involved in the process said they had to accept the list as the provision is not mandatory.
Another EC official said the RJP-N had not corrected the list despite repeated notices. But Jha denied the claim saying that their list was approved without objection.
Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav said the issue would be settled while electing candidates from the RJP-N list.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
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