Koirala and Yadav win

Shashank Koirala and Sita Devi Yadav elected as General Secretary and Treasurer of Nepali Congress.

Mar 8, 2016The Brief

From the archive blog: The Brief

ass Shashank Koirala has become the new General Secretary of Nepali Congress, the country's oldest political party.

Similarly, Sita Devi Yadav has been elected as the new treasurer of the party. Both are from the NC establishment camp.

Koirala is the youngest son of BP Koirala, who founded, nurtured and shaped the NC until his death in 1982. Yadav is the widow of Chandra Narayan Yadav, who was shot dead by the Maoists during the war.

Koirala beat Arjun Narsingh KC and his son-in-law Gagan Thapa to grab the second most powerful post in the NC. As the voting concluded Tuesday evening, Koirala ended up bagging a total of 1,417 votes. KC and Thapa received 1,017 and 584 votes respectively.

Yadav defeated her nearest rival Chitra Lekha Yadav by a narrow margin of 8 votes.

Although Koirala and Yadav both won the election Tuesday, the establishment camp's candidate for the party presidency Ram Chandra Poudel was defeated by Sher Bahadur Deuba late Monday night.

Koirala joined politics after restoration of democracy in 1990, and was a central committee member of the NC. He is dissatisfied with the NC's decision to abolish the monarchy. He has also spoken out against secularism and republicanism.