KATHMANDU: Four years after leaving the CPN-UML and joining the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, senior left leader Bamdev Gautam has prepared to contest elections once again.
The Bardiya district committee of the Nepal Communist Party has placed Gautam’s name at the top while recommending candidates for both the House of Representatives election scheduled for March 5, 2026, and the National Assembly election to be held on January 25, 2026.
For the House of Representatives, Bardiya constituency no. 1 (direct), the party has recommended Bamdev Gautam and another senior leader Shakti Bahadur Basnet.
In the 2017 general election, Gautam, then a former minister and CPN-UML leader, was defeated by Nepali Congress candidate Sanjay Gautam by a narrow margin of 753 votes from Bardiya-1.
Sanjay Gautam secured 44,829 votes, while Bamdev Gautam received 44,076 votes. Following that defeat, Gautam did not contest the 2022 general election.
Earlier, in 2020, Bamdev Gautam was appointed as a National Assembly member after being nominated by then President Bidya Devi Bhandari. At the time, Gautam was serving as vice-chair of the then Nepal Communist Party (NCP).
The nomination came after the completion of the tenure of then Finance Minister Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada, which left one of the three presidential nomination seats in the National Assembly vacant from March.
With his name now topping the party’s recommendation list, Gautam’s return to active electoral politics has once again drawn attention within Nepal’s left political circles.
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