Kathmandu, Mar 10: Fourteen women have been elected to Nepal’s parliament in the recently concluded general elections, accounting for just over eight per cent of the total seats.
While the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won 13 of the 14 seats, the Nepali Congress (NC) bagged one.
The representation of women in the lower house has improved compared to the previous parliamentary elections in 2022, when only nine women candidates were elected, accounting for 5.45 per cent of the House.
Nepal’s Constitution mandates that women should have at least 33 per cent representation in Parliament, but political parties have so far failed to meet the provision.
With 14 women winning under the direct voting system, their representation stands at around 8.48 per cent so far.
The House of Representatives (HoR) in Nepal has a total of 275 seats. While 165 members are elected through direct voting, 110 are elected through proportional representation.
The highest number of 30 women parliamentarians were elected during the first constituent assembly election held in 2008, when the CPN-Maoist emerged as the largest party soon after joining mainstream politics through the peace process that ended a decade-long armed insurgency.
Most of the women elected at that time were Maoist guerrillas.
Among the prominent victories this time, former Deputy Speaker Indira Ranamagar of the RSP defeated Dev Raj Ghimire, Speaker of the dissolved HoR from the CPN-UML, by a margin of 48,742 votes. Ranamagar secured 60,110 votes against Ghimire’s 11,368.
Rubina Acharya of the RSP defeated senior Nepali Congress leader Shekhar Koirala by a wide margin, polling 55,513 votes against his 12,850.
Sobita Gautam of the RSP also registered a decisive victory over Renu Dahal of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), daughter of former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’.
Gautam secured 59,277 votes, while Dahal, who had resigned as mayor of Bharatpur Metropolitan City to contest the polls, received 20,615 votes.
The other winners are Among those elected this time are Nisha Dangi, Asha Jha, Pushpa Kumari Chaudhari, Gauri Kumari, Nitima Bhandari, Ashika Tamang, Ranju Neupane, Toshima Karki, Bina Gurung, and Komal Gyawali, from the RSP, and Vasana Thapa, 45, from the Nepali Congress.