News Report: Rajubabu does NOT get nominated as the party's candidate

Post Report, Aug 28.

In a dramatic turn of events that transpired on Friday, the Nepal Democratic Forum party central bureau member Rajubabu Manandhar, who was expected to get the party's nomination as the candidate running for the upcoming general election, did not make it into the ballot paper due to a delay in filing with the election commission. Sources claim the miss was caused by the updated filing regulations established by the federal government and implemented haphazardly at the last moment.

A source close to Manandhar claimed that the new rules were implemented to stop him from getting the party's nomination. "The central government is fearful about our leader's presence in the parliament, it is clear to all of us that if he wins the nomination, not only is victory guaranteed but he's also likely to be the party's parliamentary chief, and the likely Prime Minister. It is not lost on other parties, specially those in the government that he is hugely popular not just in his constituency but across the country and any coalition that ran the government would be obliged to include him. We have no doubt that the whole situation was orchestrated to stop that, and we will be petitioning against this all the way up to the Supreme Court," the source claimed.

This is not Mr. Manandhar's first trouble with the upcoming election candidacy. The party committee had decided to raise him as the candidate from Siraha-5 after a controversy, after the original nominated candidate, a son of a power local leader, withdraw himself from the running. Manandhar had been under Intensive Care at a hospital in Kathmandu for the preceding seven months before he gained consciousness right in time to claim the nomination from the party. It is understood that he had threatened to quit the party and start his own and run under its banner if the party didn't run him, and the nomination withdrawal was the result of associated pressure from the threat.

Mr. Manandhar or any of his close associates were unavailable to give comment on the record. The Nepa Democratic Forum party media branch refused to say anything on the matter, claiming it was a matter of internal politics and the party was investing all its resources for the upcoming elections.