Five British-Nepali candidates—Bishnu Bahadur Gurung, Lachhya Bahadur Gurung, Jit Ranabhat, Kamal Gurung, and Jagannath Sharma—have emerged triumphant in the May 5 local elections in the UK.
Bishnu Bahadur, the incumbent mayor of London borough of Hounslow, has been re-elected for the third time. The Labour candidate garnered 1,037 votes, beating his Conservative rival with 268 votes. A former British Gurkha soldier, Bishnu Bahadur had previously served as the deputy mayor of Hounslow.
Lachhya Bahadur, the former deputy mayor of London Borough of Barnet Council, is another candidate to be re-elected—in what is his second win—as the councilor of Edgwarebury ward. The Conservative emerged the victor, edging his rival by just 42 votes. It’s a bittersweet win for the likely future borough mayoral candidate from his party, as voters handed Labour candidates the majority.
Meanwhile, Ranabhat has become the first Briton of Nepali origin to be elected councilor from Plumstead and Glyndon ward of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. There were 10 aspirants for three councilor seats in the ward. All three seats went to Labour candidates.
Ranabhat received 2,319 votes and his two fellow party winners each got more than 2,400 votes. Except for one losing candidate, none secured more than 500 votes.
Several British Nepali candidates had previously been elected in the UK local elections, but Ranabhat made history by becoming the first British Nepali to win from one of the royal boroughs.
Elsewhere, in North Yorkshire County Council, Sharma won the councilor’s seat from the Hipswell and Colburn division. Sharma is also former deputy mayor of Colburn town and the Conservative Party’s deputy chairperson for Richmondshire district, the constituency of British finance minister Rishi Sunak.
Sharma, who was also running for the post of North Yorkshire County councilor, lost the election with just eight votes to the Green Party candidate. North Yorkshire is the largest non-metropolitan county of England and Sharma is the first Nepali-origin Briton to run for the post of councillor.
Likewise, Kamal Bahadur, a former British Gurkha soldier and Labour candidate, has been elected to represent Burnt Oak ward of London Borough of Barnet. He registered a comfortable win with a vote difference of 2,377 against his Conservative rival whose vote count was lower than 1,000.
Chitra Bahadur Gurung, Suman Pun, Bhim Saru, Gyan Prasad Gurung, and Sanjay Panta were among other British Nepali candidates in the local elections, but they all lost. Besides Saru, all four others represented the ruling Conservative Party of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
