Janamat Party Chairman Chandra Kanta (CK) Raut has been elected as a member of the House of Representatives from Saptari-2.
Raut won the elections by defeating his rival Upendra Yadav, chairman of the Madhes-centric Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP).
Raut garnered 34,042 votes while Yadav remained in the distant second position with 16,979 votes. Likewise, Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP) candidate Jayaprakash Thakur, who contested elections from the ruling electoral alliance led by the Nepali Congress, only got 7,347 votes.
The Yadav-led JSP contested elections under the electoral alliance led by the main opposition CPN-UML.
Yadav, a former deputy prime minister and a former foreign minister, is powerful a leader from the Madhes region who rose to power after 2008 Madhes movement. Since then, Yadav won elections to the HoR from Saptari.
Yadav's defeat is taken as a major setback to the Madhes-centric political forces who have been dominant players in the region for nearly two decades.
The JSP and LSP both are performing poorly in the ongoing vote tally for Terai-Madhes region while CK Raut's party is winning both federal parliament and provincial assembly seats, emerging as a new political force in the region.
CK Raut cashing in on sentiments of Madhesis
CK Raut is winning elections to federal parliament and provincial assembly by cashing in on frustration of Madhesis towards traditional parties.
Earlier on Wednesday, party's Mahesh Yadav was elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly from Saptari-2 (B). This was the first-ever victory that the party secured in Madhes. Janamat Party candidate Satish Singh won provincial assembly polls in Saptari-2 (A).
CK Raut's Janamat party, which advocated for an independent autonomous Madhes, joined the mainstream in March 2019. Since then, Raut tried to woo people of Madhesi origin in different ways thereby creating a political space for his party.
In December last year, he raised the some basic problems of Madhesi people including the shortage of wheat seeds. For example, his party organized a strike in Madhes demanding the immediate supply of wheat seed in December 2021. Such moves were politically-motivated.
Why JSP and LSP are performing poorly?
JSP and LSP are performing poorly in this election for three reasons, according to experts.
The first is they are disoriented from their original agendas. The second is they got so much engaged with power politics along with other traditional parties at the Center. The third is Madhes-centric parties failed to keep their unity among themselves due to their intra-party disputes.
Roshan Janakpuri, a political analyst in Janakpur, says that Madhes-centric parties failed to live up to people's expectations even as the entire region is plagued by numerous socio-economic problems.
"People in Madhes now realized that Madhes-centric parties used them just as vote banks," Janakpuri told Nepalkhabar in a recent interview.
When Madhes saw two major political movements in 2008 and in 2015, people had high hopes that those movements would contribute to bring drastic change to their region in terms of basic health, education, agriculture, employment as well as infrastructure development.
Most notably, at least 50 people of Madhesi origin lost their lives in police brutality during massive protests against the constitution in 2015. In the aftermath of protests, the government agreed to amend the national charter, which helped to create a solid political ground for regional parties in Madhes.
In the last 2017 local, federal and provincial assembly elections, Madhes-centric parties managed to secure enough seats as people had high expectations that they would do something good in the interests of this region.
After five years, people of Madhes origin lost faith in the regional parties because they didn't really do something good in the interests of their constituents, according to local observers.
Jibachcha Jha, an old political activist and a former government officer, in Mahottari district, said Madhes centric parties were to be blamed for the poor economic growth in Madhes region in recent years.
"I am one of the witnesses who himself saw Madhes movement very closely in 2015. Police brutality was at its peak when protests were simmering across our region including Janakpur. Once day in September of that year, I saw at least five people got killed on broad daylight in violent clashes with the police near my village. I, too, could have received bullets, but managed to escape. Why did we (people) join in those protests? Because we hoped Madhes-centric parties would work in ensuring both the political rights and economic well-being of Madhesi people after the success of these political movements. Seven years passed, two elections crossed, but Madhesis are still waiting for basic health and education," Jha told India Narrative at his home which is adjacent to province capital Janakpur.
Jha said that they began having deep faith in Madhes-centric parties as Kathmandu-centric traditional parties including Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) did not live up to people's political, economic and developmental aspirations.
He sees Madhes-centric parties are not now much different than that of conventional parties who have been in power over three decades after 1990. "In fact, Madhes-centric parties are going to lose this election. This will ultimately benefit the traditional political parties," he observed.
Two key Madhes-centric parties were in the fray in the upcoming polls—Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP).
Eying better prospects in elections, the JSP led by Upendra Yadav allied with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) led by KP Oli in the while the LSP led by Mahantha Thakur partnered with the electoral alliance comprising five ruling parties.
Big parties gaining grounds
Madhes was once a bastion of the grand old party Nepali Congress but had slowly been whittled away by the Madhes-centric parties after 2008 Madhes uprising that saw deaths of over two dozen across Terai-Madhes region. But they could not remain unified for long. The Madhes-centric parties, who championed political movements, witnessed multiple splits owing to intra-party factional feuds before and after the promulgation of constitution in 2015.
"The division among Madhes-centric is an opportunity for traditional parties to win elections in Madhes. At the same time, people's faith in Madhes-centric parties is sharply declining. Hence big parties including the Congress and the UML are back again," Janankpuri added. The analyst says that even key leaders of Madhes-centric parties like Mahantha Thakur, Rajendra Mahato are likely to lose elections as their political base has weakened sharply.
Madhes-centric parties’ electoral alliance with the ruling and opposition parties is not based on ideology, but rather on electoral calculation, Chandra Kishore, another political commentator from Madhes said.
"Those parties, who once championed the agenda of federalism and inclusiveness, are struggling to ensure seats in the federal and provincial assemblies. In the polls they partnered with the conventional political forces, which are mostly centrist and anti-federalist. Isn't it any irony?" he said.
