"I will vote for Lal Babu Pandit. He will win the election this time," said Bharat Regmi, we met in a new settlement about a kilometer to the east of Tanki Sinuwari crossroad in Morang, without any inhibition.
"This has been a Nepali Congress (NC) stronghold from the beginning. Shekhar Koirala is contesting on NC ticket on top of that. What can Lal Babu Pandit do when even Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar could not defeat him?" Janardan Regmi, who was nearby, responded.
The Regmi siblings had an exchange for some time about who out of Koirala and CPN-UML candidate Pandit will emerge victorious. "Pandit will win with a margin of 4,000 votes this time," Bharat hit back immediately after his kid brother Janardan finished. "There may be competition but Koirala will eventually emerge victorious even if the margin may not be too big," Janardan replied.
The Regmi brothers are not interested much in politics at other times. But they reveal that the environment gets heated at the times of election in Biratnagar that was at the center of the revolution against the Rana and Panchayat regimes.
Shekhar Koirala is contesting from Morang-6 in the federal election to save the legacy of Koirala family that has a glorious history in Biratnagar. Three from his family—Matrika, BP and Girija Prasad—have already served as the country's prime minister. Shekhar is son of Keshav, kid brother of Matrika and BP, and elder brother of Girija.
Shekhar himself is not a political novice. He was deployed to ensure victory for Girija in Morang-1 in the first general election in 1991 and has been elected twice from Morang-6.
The constituency in normal times is an NC stronghold and the party had won at most of the wards here in the recent local election. NC has become stronger after Nepal Democratic Forum (NDF) led by Gachchhadar, another party with a strong base here, merged with NC. Gachchhadar had won from this constituency in the first Constituent Assembly (CA) election in 2008 and had finished second to Shekhar in the second CA election in 2013.
The constituency includes ward number 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13 of Biratnagar Metropolitan City, ward number 2-7 of Sundar Haraincha municipality, and Budhiganga rural municipality. NC had won two wards, UML two and CPN (Maoist Center) one out of the seven wards of Biratngar included in this constituency in the recent local election.
Similarly, NC had won five out of the six wards of Sundar Haraincha and UML in one. Gachchhadar's NDF, that has already merged with NC, had won in three wards of Budhi Ganga, UML in three and NC in one. Shekhar, in this way, is far ahead going by the votes received by parties at the ward level.
But UML is not weak in the constituency either. It has fielded Pandit, who has created a different image in national politics, to make things interesting in the constituency that was considered an easy one for Shekhar.
Pandit, who had worked in Morang, when the then CPN-ML was underground, has been familiar to the people here for a long time. UML, therefore, believes that he will provide a tough fight to Shekhar.
Setopati team after talking to well over 200 voters in all the wards of the constituency has found that the competition indeed is tight. 108 of the 231 voters we talked to said they will vote for Shekhar while 99 said Pandit. Eight said they will vote for other candidates while 16 refused to reveal who they will vote for.
The reason for Pandit giving a close fight to Shekhar in his fortress is that many voters who had voted for Shekhar in the second CA election have chosen Pandit now. Thirty-one of the 231 voters we talked to said they had voted for Shekhar in the last election but will vote for Pandit now. There were just three who had voted for UML in the second CA election and will vote for NC now.
Nine who had voted for NDF in the second CA election said they will vote for NC this time. This can make things a little easier for NC. Without NDF's votes, Shekhar would have faced a stiffer challenge.
How did UML that was weak in the constituency in the local election become strong enough to challenge Shekhar now?
UML cadres are not ready to concede that UML was weak here even in the local election. Jeevan Dahal of Sundar Haraincha-5 said UML lost the local election due to internal disputes despite having a strong base here. "That will not happen this time. Maoist Center has also allied with UML now and it will get even those votes," he added.
NC cadres, on the other hand, claim that the party has been strong here from the beginning and will win easily even this time.
Laxmi Prasad Nepal of Sundar Haraincha-3 said he joined NC at the time of BP and his hands do not go elsewhere while voting. "NC has traditional voters here who don't even think about other parties," he stated. "Shekhar will get even more votes as he is from the Koirala family," he argued.
UML has accused that Shekhar has done nothing in the constituency despite winning from here twice. A few voters who had voted for Shekhar twice, no doubt, feel he did not do much as UML has pointed at strongly. Twenty-eight of the voters who had voted for NC earlier say they will vote for the left alliance this time due to that reason.
UML has also tried to cash in on some grievances of a few locals. Some wards of Budhiganga rural municipality are adjacent to Biratnagar and they wanted these wards to be included in Biratnagar Metropolitan City. UML accuses that Shekhar ignored those wishes.
We also found many who were generous in Shekhar's praise. Maya Bastola of Sundar Haraincha-4 said she and her neighbors got relief materials during the recent flood in August due to Shekhar. "We could not stay in our homes due to the flood. We didn't even have food grains to eat," she stated. "NC cadres came to rescue us. We will, therefore, vote for NC," she reasoned.
NC supporters defend Shekhar saying he has not done anything wrong even if he may not have done good works. Some like Shambhu Lal Sapkota of Budhiganga-4 say that Shekhar is good but his cadres are not. "I earn a living by operating an auto-rickshaw. I don't expect anything from anyone. But I still have faith in NC," Sapkota said. "But Shekhar's men have vitiated the environment. They don't even consider us human beings."
The traditional votes of NC here is the biggest strength of Shekhar. They may have grievances with NC or Shekhar but they will still vote for NC. "Nobody does good work. NC also doesn't deserve our votes," Indra Kumar Laabh of Bargachhi, Biratngar said. "But we cannot refuse to feed the cat because it kills mice sometimes. I will, therefore, vote for NC," he stated.
But the honest image of Pandit has attracted even some NC voters. People in Biratnagar have heard about the works Pandit did when he was general administration minister. "He is not from this constituency. He used to contest from other constituencies in the past," Srichandra Rai of Budhiganga-1 said. "But Pandit is a honest man and has a squeaky clean image. I am voting for UML leaving NC believing that this area will see development if he wins," he reasoned.
Shekhar and Pandit represent two different communities. Shekhar is of hill origin while Pandit is a Madhesi. There is a good mix of hill and Madhesi voters in this constituency.
Both the candidates share a quality though. They both mingle very easily with people of other community and are equally accepted by the other community. Voters of hill origin like Pandit as much as Madhesi voters like Shekhar.
This shared quality has made the election competitive and more interesting.
