Kathmandu, November 9
As electioneering in the run-up to provincial and federal parliamentary elections is getting momentum, candidates of major political parties in Province 1 have been promising their voters that they will establish their own cities or districts as the provincial capital.
It is interesting to note that candidates representing a single party have different answers for which city the provincial capital will be.
For example, CPN-UML’s House of Representatives candidate Rajendra Rai says his own district, Dhankuta, should be made the capital. But, another leader of the same party Lal Babu Pandit wants to make Biratnagar the capital. Pandit is contesting for the House of Representatives from Morang-6.
Sunsari-1’s House of Representatives candidate for the same party, Jaya Kumar Rai, says it should be Itahari.
The story is not different in the Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Centre. Leaders of these parties have been proposing Biratnagar, Itahari, Dharan or Dhankuta as provincial capitals.
With the parties’ central leadership not making any concrete decision about their stand for capital cities, it is unlikely that the provincial assembly of the far-eastern province of the country will make any unanimous decision about the capital. In that case, the legislative body will settle the issue through voting.
