Saratsingh Bhandari: Changing party from Panchayat to Republic, becoming a minister

Bhandari, who was elected as National Panchayat member in 2038 and 2043, has not been elected from the same party in any election since then. He has been changing parties every time, standing for election, winning and becoming a minister .

How many times became a minister?

The first account of Saratsingh Bhandari's ministerial position was opened in February 2044 . Marichman Singh Shrestha, the last prime minister of the Panchayat system on 2nd June 2043, reorganized the cabinet in February 2044 and became the Assistant Minister of Panchayat and Local Development in February. A year later, Bhandari was promoted to the Minister of State for Commerce in October 045.

Sharadsingh Bhandari taking office as Labor Minister. Photo : Prakashchandra Timilsena/Kantipur

In 046, with the collapse of the Panchayat system and the establishment of the multi-party system, his political rise stopped for about 5 years. As the supporters of the Panchayat system did not dare to stand for elections, they also did not see such a movement in the 048 general elections. But in the mid-term elections held on 051 October, he was again elected as a member of the House of Representatives independently from Mahottari. After that, he got an opportunity to become a minister again.

After the fall of Manmohan Adhikari's minority government, Sher Bahadur Deuba, the leader of the Congress parliamentary party, became the Prime Minister in 052 August. In Deuba's 'Jumbo' cabinet, Bhandari became a departmental state minister in 052 November. He was promoted to minister without department on 24th of January 053. When the Deuba government was dissolved and the UML-led government was formed under the leadership of Lokendra Bahadur Chand, Bhandari did not become a minister.

Even though he has been a minister in Panchayat twice, Chand Khema does not seem to like him . When Surya Bahadur Thapa became the Prime Minister with the help and support of Congress after replacing Chand, the day of him becoming a minister came again. Bhandari became the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture in 054 October. Girija Prasad Koirala, who became the Prime Minister after Surya Bahadur Thapa, did not like Bhandari. Because, he was not included as a minister in any cabinet of Koirala.

He was again elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Mahottari in the general election held in 056. By then, Bhandari had become Congress. He won the election from the Congress and was re-appointed as the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture in May 056 in the cabinet formed under the leadership of Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. At that time, the South Asian sports competition was completed in Kathmandu, and Bhandari got the 'juice' of it. Again, when Bhattarai reorganized the cabinet, his department was changed in February 2016 and he became the health minister.

In March of the same year, Girija Prasad Koirala removed Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as the Prime Minister and became the Prime Minister himself. When Sher Bahadur Deuba defeated Girija Prasad Koirala in the power struggle within the Congress, Saratsingh Bhandari's day opened again when he became the Prime Minister. He became the Minister of Health again in 058 July, not even two years passed without hoisting the Minister's flag.

Then Bhandari was deprived of being a minister throughout the reign of Gyanendra Shah . After the success of Jan Andolan II, the government was formed under the leadership of Girija Prasad Koirala in Baisakh. But he did not become a minister.

065 Rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who got to sit in the "hot seat" of the Prime Minister after the country entered the republic on 15th June. Saratsingh Bhandari, who was not included in the Dahal government formed in the same August, then caught the eye of another Communist Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal. He succeeded to become the Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation in the Cabinet of Ministers of Nepal formed in May 066. At that time, he left the Congress and joined the Madhesi People's Rights Forum. And became a minister from the same party.

In August 2068, Bhandari became the defense minister in the cabinet formed under the leadership of Baburam Bhattarai. By that time, he had left the Madhesi Janadhikhar Forum (Upendra Yadav) and went to Vijay Kumar Gachchdar's Madhesi Janadhikhar Forum Democratic. He had to resign from his post after he expressed that the Terai would be disintegrated if the youth of the Terai Madhes did not join the Nepali Army en masse.

When the CPN reached the split deal, the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli reconstituted the Cabinet on 21st May 2078, in which Bhandari was given the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy. At that time he became Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation from Jaspa. But this time, he became the minister only for 17 days.

The last time he became the Minister of Labor and Social Security in the government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal in Chait 079. After Dahal broke the alliance with the Congress and formed a government with the UML, Bhandari's journey to power was stopped for some time. On Monday, he again became a minister in the Oli-led government. LOSPA has President Mahant Thakur, Bhandari, Sarvendra Nath Shukla and Ram Prakash Chaudhary as federal MPs. But Bhandari is again chosen by President Thakur.

Political background

He entered politics from the Nepal Vidyarthi Sangh in 2032 and entered politics directly from the Panchayat system. Since then, he joined various camps of Congress and Madhes party and succeeded in winning elections and becoming a minister. In the Panchayat system, he was elected twice from Mahottari, winning both (2038 and 2043 National Panchayat Member). He won as a member of the House of Representatives from Mahottari in the years 051 and 056 during the multi-party period. Even during the republican period, he has been winning elections in the Constituent Assembly and the House of Representatives from Mahottari.

In 048 he did not stand for election . He was independently elected as a member of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections held on 051 October. In the general election of 2056, he won as a candidate from the Nepali Congress, and in the elections of 2064, 070, 074 and 079, he stood up from different camps of Madhesh party. And, except for the Second Constituent Assembly of 070, he succeeded in winning all of them. He won 7 out of 8 direct elections.

In the 2nd Constituent Assembly election of 070, he was elected from Forum Democratic but lost in Mahottari. After that, he left the Democratic Forum and formed the Rashtriya Madhe Samajwadi Party under his own leadership and remained active in politics through it. After some time, it was also incorporated into Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP) and moved forward. He won the 2074 general election from the Rajpa, which was made up of 6 Madhesh-centric parties. But after UML and Maoist Center formed CPN, his dream of becoming a minister could not be fulfilled .

But after Upendra Yadav Oli went to the government, the conflict started again in the Madhesh parties. They separately formed the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP). He was one of its 6 chairman. Having split from that, now Bhandari is affiliated to LOSPA led by Mahanth Thakur .