NRNA Elections – Kumar Panta elected President

  • October 18, 2019

Candidate Kumar Pant shakes hand with voters during the election of Non-Resident Nepali Association, on Thursday. Photo: RSS

Kumar Panta has been elected ‘president of the Non-Resident Nepali Association, the apex body representing Nepali diaspora abroad. He beat his rival Kul Acharya at the polls and will lead the association for the next two years.

Panta had served as the association’s vice-president for the past two terms – 2015 – 2017, and 2017 – 2019. His focus areas, as per his pre-election campaigns will focus on encouraging investment in Nepal, respectful foreign employment, NRN citizenship and its pertaining issues, and sustainability. Originally from Gorkha district, Panta is based in Germany.

Badri KC, Sonam Lama and Arjun Kumar Shrestha have been elected the vice-presidents. Meanwhile, Hom Pandey has beat rival Dinesh Joshi to be elected NRNA Oceania Regional Coordinator. Pande had 105 votes to his name, while Joshi had 103. Similarly, Nabin Kandel has beat Hari Ramjali for the post of NRNA Oceania Regional Vice-Coordinator. Kandel had 107 votes to his name while Ramjali only 100.

More than 2,500 NRNs are gathered in Kathmandu for the 9th NRNA  Global Conference – to decide upon their working committee for the next two years. As many as 76 candidates are contesting for 42 posts and representatives from 81 countries are attending the congress.

The election of the new leadership of Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA), initially scheduled for Tuesday, begun on Thursday at 10:00 am. Voting concluded in the evening.

According to NRNA spokesperson, Bhushan Ghimire, ballot paper has been used instead of the electronic voting machine where both sides agreed to use ballot paper after a long debate surrounding it, Ghimire added.