Chandra Kant Bhandari, Madhu Acharya and Binod Kumar Chaudhary have been elected vice-presidents of the Nepali Congress at the party’s 15th General Convention. Pradeep Paudel, Udaya Shumsher Rana and Dila Sangroula (Panta) have won the three general secretary posts.
Bhandari and Acharya won the two open vice-president seats, while Chaudhary was elected from the inclusive category. Paudel and Rana won the two open general secretary seats, while Sangroula secured the position reserved for women.
According to the final results, Bhandari received 3,735 votes, Acharya 2,342 and Chaudhary 1,745. Paudel topped the general secretary race with 4,194 votes, followed by Sangroula with 3,118 and Rana with 2,330.
Acharya finished 590 votes ahead of Govinda Bhattarai, who came third in the open vice-president race with 1,752 votes. Surendraraj Pandey received 1,673 votes, Dhanraj Gurung 1,596, Deepak Giri 923 and Chandra Mohan Yadav 760.
Chaudhary defeated his closest rival, Jeevan Pariyar, by 87 votes in the inclusive vice-president category. Pariyar received 1,658 votes, while Farmullah Mansoor secured 1,144, Sita Gurung 1,112 and Ranjit Karna 562.
In the open general secretary race, Rana edged out Sunil Kumar Sharma by 73 votes. Sharma received 2,257 votes. Gururaj Ghimire polled 1,513, Nain Singh Mahar 1,134, Amar Singh Pun Magar 1,125, Shankar Tiwari 123 and Santosh Upadhyay 97.
In the women’s category, Sangroula defeated Mahalaxmi Upadhyay, popularly known as Dina, by 254 votes. Sangroula secured 3,118 votes, against Upadhyay’s 2,864. Rita Khanal received 804 votes.
Sangroula becomes the first woman to be elected general secretary in the Nepali Congress’s history.
Leadership shifts
Paudel, who became a general secretary at the party’s special convention earlier this year, has retained the position through the regular convention. At the 14th general convention, he had contested the post on the panel of former party president Sher Bahadur Deuba but lost to Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma, who won the two general secretary positions.
Paudel later moved closer to Thapa’s leadership during the party’s internal leadership transition and was elected general secretary at the special convention.
Rana, previously known as a Deuba-aligned leader, was elected joint general secretary at the special convention after joining Thapa’s camp. The regular convention has now elevated him to general secretary.
Sangroula, who had also been close to Deuba, joined the Thapa-led camp during the special convention and became a joint general secretary. She has now defeated Upadhyay, who was elected joint general secretary from the women’s category at the 14th general convention.
Upadhyay had left the Deuba camp shortly before the convention and joined the Thapa-led party process. Her move came as Deuba’s faction prepared to hold a parallel convention. More than 50 office-bearers and committee members from the Deuba camp joined the Thapa-led convention under Upadhyay’s leadership.