DHARAN, Nov 28: Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) Candidate Ashok Kumar Rai has been elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Sunsari-1.
Rai managed to secure victory from Sunsari 1 in his second attempt in coordination with CPN-UML. According to the final results announced on Monday morning, Rai has won by 453 votes, defeating the candidate of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Goma Tamang (Sarin). While Rai got 17,059 votes, Tamang got 16,606 votes. Muksamahang Menyangbo, the candidate of the CPN (Maoist Center) from the coalition, got 13,087 votes.
Rai, who got a ticket with the support of UML in Sunsari 1, had a hard time asking for votes during the election campaign. He had to struggle the same way during the vote counting as well. Rai, who was lagging behind in the counting of votes from the beginning, started taking the lead only from Sunday.
After the counting of votes in 20 wards of Dharan, he was trailing by 192 votes with Tamang. When the counting of votes for the wards of Barah Kshetra municipality started, only then did he start to reduce the margin of votes. After the counting of wards 1, 2 and 3 of Barah Kshetra, Rai took the lead of four votes only. After that, he did not let Tamang of RSP to get ahead of him, and won by a margin of 453 votes.
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This will be Rai's third visit to parliament in his political career. He was elected by direct election after 28 years. Rai, who was elected MP from Khotang in 2048 BS and 2051BS, lost the election from Udayapur in 2056 BS. He was also defeated in 2064 BS and he became an MP from the Sanghiya Samajwadi Party proportionally in 2070 BS.
Rai was elected from Sunsari 1 in his second attempt. Earlier in 2074 BS, he was a candidate in coordination with the Nepali Congress. At that time, he was defeated by UML's Jayakumar Rai in a double vote. In that election, Rai, who was defeated by getting 22,123 votes, won by getting 17,059 votes.
