‘Prachanda’ ditches KP Oli for Dueba in Nepal Presidential election

The political merry-go-round in the Himalayan Republic of Nepal continues with Prime Minister Prachanda ditching ally KP Oli for Nepali Congress candidate for the forthcoming Presidential elections.

Updated on: Feb 25, 2023, 12:30:50 IST

By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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Nepal’s eight political parties have decided to back Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel for the country's presidency scheduled for March 9. Poudel, 78, is likely to succeed incumbent Bidya Devi Bhandari as the next president. The election to the post of president is likely to change the current power equation as Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' has decided not to support the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) candidate for the post.

KP Oli has been left high and dry after ally Prachanda ditched him and supported the Nepali Congress for the Presidential election.

The eight political parties - Nepali Congress, CPN- Maoist Centre, CPN-Unified Socialist, Rastriya Janata Party, Lokatantrik Samajwadi Party, Rastriya Janamorcha, Nagarik Unmukti Party and Janamat Party - decided at a joint meeting, held at the residence of Prachanda on Friday evening, took the decision to vote for the Nepali Congress candidate for the post of president.

Meanwhile, the secretariat meeting of the CPN (UML) chaired by KP Oli has decided to field party vice chairman Subhas Nembang as its candidate for the presidential poll. The CPN (UML) will take the final decision on withdrawing support from the federal government and the ruling coalition after the election.

Till then, the CPN (UML) will continue to reach out to various political parties to seek support for its candidature.

Candidates wishing to contest the election should file their nominations on February 25 and the poll will be conducted on March 9. The meeting of the top leaders of NC, Maoist Centre, JSP and CPN (US) on Friday morning had agreed to restore the previous alliance - the alliance before that of the November 20 election.

One who gets support from the eight parties will easily get elected to the post of president as per the current strength of the parties in Parliament.

Poudel and Krishna Sitaula have publicly announced their willingness to contest the election for the post of president.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More