Kathmandu’s former city police chief Pandey elected from Kathmandu-3

KATHMANDU: Raju Nath Pandey of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has been elected to the House of Representatives from the Kathmandu-3 constituency.

According to the final vote count, Pandey (55) secured 18,757 votes. His closest rival, Kulman Ghising of the Ujyaalo Nepal Party (UNP), received 11,171 votes.

Pandey previously served as chief of the City Police of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. He resigned after it became certain that Mayor Balen Shah would contest the parliamentary election.

Interestingly, the UNP and the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) had reached an understanding on a possible party merger about a month before the election. Following the agreement, the UNP withdrew its closed list of candidates submitted to the Election Commission and incorporated some of those names into the RSP’s proportional representation list.

However, the merger talks later collapsed, and Ghising eventually contested the election under the UNP banner. Some of the UNP candidates on the RSP’s closed list chose to stay with the RSP.