Voters say the electoral scene in Ilam-1 has become completely new as faces who have been in the competition for a long time are suddenly out of the fray.
After the advent of multi-party politics, Jhalanath Khanal was the undisputed candidate from Ilam-1 in all elections from 2048 BS to 2079 BS. Khanal contested 7 elections and was elected from this constituency 5 times, except for the 2056 BS and 2079 BS general elections.
Khanal, who contested the 2048, 2051, 2056 and 2074 general elections with the UML's sun symbol in the 2064 and 2070 constituent assembly elections, lost to UML's Mahesh Basnet in 2079 when he became a candidate with the pen symbol of his own party (Unified Socialist) from the alliance formed with the support of the Congress and the Maoist Center.
Before that, he lost to Congress's Benupraj Prasai in the 2056 general election and won the remaining 5 elections. Khanal is not a candidate this time. Along with Khanal, who has been at the center of central politics from the ground of Ilam, Prasai and Basnet, who defeated him in 2056 and 2079, are also not candidates this time.
Since none of his counterparts, including Jhalanath, have filed their candidacies, the politics of Ilam-1 has not received much attention in the mainstream this time. Maniram Chhetri of Fikkal Bazaar says that since candidates who have contested elections repeatedly, including Jhalanath, are not in the fray, Elam voters have an opportunity to vote for worthy candidates among the new ones.
‘In the previous elections, there was a fight for prestige, sometimes people voted that Ilam would get a prime minister, sometimes people voted that if a top party leader loses, the district’s honor will be lost, sometimes people gave it to him because they had to, this time because he is not a candidate, we have a chance to test the new ones,’ he said.
Khanal was first elected from Ilam-1 in the 2048 BS parliamentary election. He has been at the center of the country’s politics since then. He won again in the 2051 BS mid-term elections. In 2056 BS, he was defeated by Congress’s Benupraj Prasai.
Then, he won again in the 2064 BS and 2070 BS Constituent Assembly elections and reached an influential role in national politics. Khanal, who won the House of Representatives by a wide margin in 2074 with the UML split, contested the election from the Unified Socialist Party, but was defeated by UML's Mahesh Basnet in 2079. Even after that defeat, he has not been out of the political debate in Ilam-1.
Voters say that the electoral scene in Ilam-1 has become completely new with the major faces who have been in the competition for a long time suddenly leaving the field.
According to local voters, the previous parliamentary and Constituent Assembly elections in Ilam-1 were associated with Khanal and his reputation. He was also the leader and cadre who got and won tickets in local elections. Voters' decisions were often focused on his favor or against. Since he is not a candidate, that is not the case now. His craze is on the decline due to the changing political influence after the last time Khanal's affiliated party merged with the Nepali Communist Party. Voters are in favor of voting based on the candidate's agenda and perspective this time.
Ilam is a region linked to tea farming, tourism and border trade. Khanal, who won repeatedly from this region, became the Minister of Information and Communications in 2053 BS and the Prime Minister in 2067 BS. However, the residents of this region complain that tourism development and infrastructure here have not been completed for more than three decades. The trend of young people migrating abroad is accelerating due to the lack of employment opportunities.
This time, the parties have fielded new faces. This time, 13 candidates are in the fray from Ilam-1, including UML's Kajiman Kagate, Congress's Nishkal Rai, Nepali Communist Party's Rana Bahadur Rai, Rastriya Swatantra Party's Bimal Gadal and Shram Sanskriti Party's Binod Nembang. There are 112,320 voters here.
