Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal has been defeated by his apprentice Mahesh Basnet of CPN-UML in Ilam-1.
This is the CPN (Unified Socialist) leader’s second defeat in the parliamentary election. He was defeated by Benup Raj Prasai of Nepali Congress in 1999.
Basnet received 25,750 votes, while Khanal polled 23,088 votes.
Khanal won the 1991, 1994, 2008, 2013 and 2017 elections from Ilam-1 as the candidate of CPN-UML. But he left the party, which he led for some time, to join Unified Socialist and contested the November 20 election as its candidate.
The septuagenarian leader was the common candidate of the five-party ruling coalition. But the support of the five parties proved insufficient for Khanal.
Khanal had played a crucial role in the formation of CPN (Marxist Leninist) in the late 1970s. He became general secretary of the party in 1990. When the UML was formed the same year, he became its politburo and standing committee member. Khanal, who became general secretary of the party briefly in 2009, was elected party president one year later.
He was appointed prime minister in February 2011. But his government failed in just nine months.
