Kathmandu, March 8
Nepali Congress senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba has been elected party president by the 13th general convention of the party.
This is the first time in 19 years that the party’s president is not from the Koirala family. Of the 3,140 votes cast on Monday, Deuba received 1,822 while his competitor Ramchandra Poudel received 1,296 votes during the second round of elections.
Born in Dadeldhura district on June 13, 1946, Deuba entered politics when he was a student. He is a founding central member of the Nepal Students’ Union and its first elected president. With the establishment of democracy in 1990, Deuba emerged as a youth leader of the Nepali Congress. In the partliamentary elections held two years later, he got elected from Dadeldhura, leaving his contender behind with a huge margin.
In the Girija Prasad Koirala government formed after the polls, Deuba became Home Minister. Deuba also won parliamentary elections held later. He won both the Constituent Assembly elections, one from Dadeldhura and the other from Kailali. He became prime mihister in 1996. When the Nepali Congress split due to internal differences, Deuba formed the NC (Democratic) and became its chair.
Before the first CA elections, the two Congress parties became one. From 2008 till 2012, Deuba worked as vice-president of Socialist International. Since 2013, he has been working as its Asia chapter as well as its international vice-president. He holds a MA (Political Science) and BA in Humanities as well as Law.
Deuba was a research fellow at London School of Economics from 1988 to 89. In course of movements for democracy, Deuba has spent a total of nine years in jail. Deuba tied the knot with Arzoo Rana when he was 45. They have a son. Like Deuba, his wife is also a Member of Parliament from the NC.
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Sher Bahadur Deuba: A journey from Dadeldhura to centre of national politics
