Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa has said the party will end central-level candidate selection and adopt constituency-based primaries in future elections, allowing local party members and voters to choose candidates, though time constraints prevented the system from being applied in the upcoming polls.
Nepal Verified News
Fri Jan 23 2026
Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa has said that candidates for the upcoming elections will no longer be selected by the Central Parliamentary Board.
Addressing a gathering at the party office in Sanepa, he stated that in future elections, candidates will be chosen within their respective constituencies. He claimed that party workers and general voters of the concerned constituency will select candidates through a primary election. However, he said that due to a shortage of time, it was not possible to select candidates through primaries this time. He added that because of time pressure, the candidate selection process could not be made as inclusive and balanced as desired.
He said, “We believe that in all 165 constituencies, the candidate selection process should be completed within the same constituency. For this, we have amended the party statute. From next time onward, Congress candidates will not be selected the way they are now. Candidates will be chosen at the grassroots level by party members and local citizens through voting. But this time, we did not have enough time. We only started this process on the 4th, and the nomination deadline was on the 6th. There was no possibility of going back and conducting primaries. Due to time pressure, even when we felt that different and more inclusive decisions could have been made in some places, we were unable to do so. If we had more time, we could have made the process more inclusive.”
Thapa also said that the special general convention was held not for personal interests, but to respect the public’s call and demand that the Nepali Congress must change.
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