Renu Dahal

Renu Dahal was born on July 4, 1976, in Bhimsen Nagar of Shivanagar VDC (now Bharatpur Metropolis) in Chitwan District.^[1] She is the second daughter of Pushpa Kamal Dahal (née Prachanda) and Sita Dahal. Dahal has a younger sister, Ganga. Her eldest sister, Gyanu, died of breast cancer in 2014 and her only brother, Prakash, died of a cardiac arrest in 2017.^[7]

In 2017, Renu Dahal won the mayorship with 43,127 votes against Devi Prasad Gyawali of the UML, who received 42,924 votes. However, her victory was highly controversial.

Reportedly, some ballot papers were torn when the then Chief Election Officer, Kabi Prasad Neupane, went to the toilet while the votes were being counted. After that, the then UML mayoral candidate, Gyawali, claimed that the ballot papers were torn in a planned manner after the Maoists were sure to lose.

There was a dispute in the counting of votes, stating that the ink of the swastika on the ballot paper was smeared excessively and was to be declared null and void. However, the case reached the court through the Election Commission. After that, it was ordered that there would be a re-election in ward 19 of the Bharatpur metropolis. Renu Dahal won the election by 203 votes.^[8]

The CPN (Maoist Centre) nominated Renu Dahal, daughter of party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, as its mayoral candidate in Bharatpur.

During an election program in Bharatpur, Pushpa Kamal Dahal stated that the country would face disaster if Nepali Congress supporters did not vote for the Maoist election symbol. In his speech, he remarked: "Let me warn you that if the NC supporters do not vote for the Maoist candidate in Bharatpur this time, there is a possibility that the country could plunge into an accident.”^[9]

The statement was widely criticized both within and outside Dahal's party. Ganesh Sah, a senior leader of the CPN (Maoist Centre), said that there was no culture of collective leadership in the party and that it was well known why Prachanda was particularly focused on Bharatpur.^[10] Other senior leaders, including Anjana Bisankhe and Indra Bahadur Angbo, also criticized the chairman’s strong involvement in Bharatpur, noting that it was the constituency of both him and his daughter.^[11]

Similarly, Jagannath Paudel, a Nepali Congress leader who contested as an independent mayoral candidate, claimed that Dahal’s speech had strengthened his own prospects and that no alliance could prevent his victory. It was also predicted that some Nepali Congress supporters would internally back Paudel against Dahal.^[12]