KATHMANDU: 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 been elected general secretaries.
Bhandari and Acharya won the two open vice-president positions, while Chaudhary secured the inclusive category seat. In the general secretary race, Paudel and Rana won the two open positions, while Sangroula was elected from the women’s category.
According to the final results, Bhandari received 3,735 votes, followed by Acharya with 2,342 and Chaudhary with 1,745 votes.
Paudel topped the general secretary race with 4,194 votes. Sangroula secured 3,118 votes, while Rana received 2,330 votes.
In the open vice-president category, Bhandari secured the highest number of votes. Acharya finished second, 590 votes ahead of Govinda Bhattarai, who received 1,752 votes.
Other candidates included Surendraraj Pandey with 1,673 votes, Dhanraj Gurung with 1,596, Deepak Giri with 923 and Chandra Mohan Yadav with 760 votes.
In the inclusive category, Chaudhary defeated his closest rival, Jeevan Pariyar, by 87 votes. Chaudhary received 1,745 votes, while Pariyar secured 1,658 votes. Farmullah Mansoor received 1,144 votes, Sita Gurung 1,112 and Ranjit Karna 562 votes.
In the open general secretary category, Paudel emerged as the leading candidate with 4,194 votes. Rana secured the second position with 2,330 votes, defeating Sunil Kumar Sharma, who received 2,257 votes, by 73 votes.
Other candidates included Gururaj Ghimire with 1,513 votes, Nain Singh Mahar with 1,134, Amar Singh Pun Magar with 1,125, Shankar Tiwari with 123 and Santosh Upadhyay with 97 votes.
In the women’s category, Sangroula defeated Mahalaxmi Upadhyay, popularly known as Dina, by 254 votes. Sangroula received 3,118 votes, compared with Upadhyay’s 2,864. Rita Khanal secured 804 votes.
Sangroula has become the first woman to be elected general secretary in the history of the Nepali Congress.
Paudel, who was elected general secretary at the party’s special convention earlier this year, has retained the position through the regular convention.
At the 14th general convention, Paudel had contested the general secretary post from the panel of former party president Sher Bahadur Deuba but lost to Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma.
He later moved closer to Thapa during the party’s internal leadership transition and was elected general secretary at the special convention.
Rana, previously associated with Deuba’s camp, was elected joint general secretary at the special convention after joining Thapa’s faction. The latest convention has elevated him to the general secretary position.
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 as Deuba’s faction prepared to hold a parallel convention. More than 50 office-bearers and committee members from Deuba’s camp joined the Thapa-led convention under Upadhyay’s leadership.
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