In Constituency No. 4 of Sarlahi, where Congress President Gagan Thapa, a candidate for Prime Minister, is contesting, all 81 polling stations are on the highly sensitive list.
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In the House of Representatives elections to be held on February 21, the Sarlahi District Security Committee has listed 158 of the 312 polling stations across the district as highly sensitive and 131 as sensitive.
In Sarlahi's constituency number 4, where Congress President Gagan Thapa, the prime ministerial candidate, is running, all 81 polling stations are on the highly sensitive list. Why? Kantipur colleagues who reached Sarlahi during on-site reporting have tried to find out the reason for this.
Sarlahi is connected to a 64-kilometer-long open border with India. In addition, Balra and Gadaita municipalities and Bishnupur and Ramnagar rural municipalities of constituency number 4 are connected to Indian territory. However, not all polling stations in constituency number 4 have been placed on the highly sensitive list just because they are connected to India. Either on polling day or during vote counting, some tension has always arisen in Sarlahi 4.
During the 2064 BS Constituent Assembly elections, there was an attempt to capture the polling station here, which was then constituency number 6. Shambhu Singh, the brother of current RSP candidate Amresh Kumar Singh, was killed in a bomb blast outside the Gadhaiya polling station.
Clashes broke out here during the counting of votes in the 2074 and 2079 elections. People were injured. The police had to fire in the air to control the situation. Due to the tense past of hooliganism and violence, this time too there is fear among the candidates and voters here.
All polling stations in Sarlahi 4 are considered very sensitive as there are clashes between candidates and their supporters, attempts to seize booths and other activities during elections. According to the District Police Office, Sarlahi, only 64 of the 334 weapons registered in the district have been handed over to them. There is also fear of homemade and illegal weapons here.
The Sarlahi police, which says it is not allowed to make its security strategy public, seems to be aware of criminal groups from both Nepal and India that may be active during the elections. Sarlahi 4 is considered highly sensitive because of the heavyweight candidates here.
The clash between Gagan Thapa, the Nepali Congress's nominee for the future Prime Minister, Amresh Kumar Singh, who left the party in 2079 and won as an independent, and Shivapujan Yadav of the then Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, who defeated him in the 2064 election, is also visible this time.
The only difference is that Yadav is not a candidate himself this time, he is fielding his son Amanish Kumar from the CPN (UML). However, this time, a significant presence of security agencies was seen in this area, which is gradually moving towards the main path of development. The security agencies have also said that patrols, surveillance and emergency security teams have been kept on standby, while the Nepali Army team is also on regular patrol.
