Jamuna Poudel of Devisthan, Phalebas Municipality-6, complained that it is difficult to save her life because of monkeys. "I am an elderly person, and hordes of monkeys enter the house when no one is home," she said. "They carry away rice pots, and when I try to drive them away, they come back to tear me to pieces."

Raju BK of Thanamaula in the same municipality said that as the monkey menace increases, they are forced to leave their fields in their village fallow. He says that the community that used to earn a living from farming in the village has been forced to migrate due to the monkey problem.

Jamuna of Devisthan and Raju of Thanamaula are just representatives. The pain of those facing the monkey problem is felt in every house. Their first demand from the candidates for the House of Representatives who come to their doorsteps is monkey control. Arjun Prasad Joshi, a candidate for the House of Representatives of the Nepali Congress, who has been going door-to-door on a campaign, said that the main demand of the village is monkey control.

‘I have visited almost all the municipalities, the monkey problem is serious,’ he said, ‘I found the monkey terror more in Phalebas, Paiyun and Bihadi in the southern mountains.’ Having contested elections before, he said that this time he had to hear more stories of the suffering caused by monkeys in his door-to-door campaign.

‘They only eat corn husks, but they eat the corn seeds buried in the ground,’ he said, narrating the complaints of voters, ‘If I become an MP, I will take a resolution from the parliament. We should practice monkey control by making a national policy.’ He said that since it is not easy for the local government to control monkeys like providing roads, drinking water and electricity to the villages, the problem can be solved by making a national policy.

Locals spend more time telling the Congress and UML candidates about the problems of monkeys. UML candidate Padam Giri, who is a two-time minister and former MP, has also been told by voters about the monkey problem like Joshi. Former UML Parbat chairman Raju Prasad Poudel, who went on a door-to-door campaign with candidate Giri, said that voters have been demanding monkey control along with paved roads, drinking water and health.

Poudel, who is also the former chairman of Mahashila Rural Municipality, says that monkey control is not a big deal. ‘I was the rural municipality chairman, I caught 323 monkeys and sent them to Chitwan National Park,’ he said. ‘A hunting group was brought in from Gorakhpur in India for the work. We were paid Rs 2,000 for catching one monkey.’ He said that although this method seemed effective, it was not continued after he left office.

Jaljala Rural Municipality Chairman Raju Prasad Acharya also says that there is no problem in monkey control. He believes that since there are not many entry points for monkeys, CCTV cameras can be installed at a few entry points to monitor them and they can be chased away immediately after they enter. ‘It’s not that monkeys have not caused any trouble in all 9 wards of the municipality,’ he said, ‘It’s not that farming has been completed, or that people have been left behind.’ Even though there have not been many complaints, not much attention has been paid to monkey control.’

Last year, Paiyun Rural Municipality had appointed 35 monitoring staff to launch a monkey-chasing campaign. Although staff were deployed to provide relief to the Paiyun residents who were suffering after the monkeys destroyed their crops, the campaign was not effective. ‘During the maize harvest, we used to keep monkeys away by keeping five employees in seven wards,’ said Ward-5 Chairman Nirbhik Narayan Bhurtel. ‘If we keep them away from one side, they will reach the other side, and if we keep them away from the other side, they will come here.’ He said that the rural municipality had allocated Rs 700,000 last year for this.