This brought to an end the long standoff over the presidential election between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress and the Maoists.

Yadav, a 61-year-old former minister with Indian roots, garnered 308 votes and will replace ousted King Gyanendra as head of state.

A last-minute candidate after the Maoists refused to accept Koirala as president, Yadav defeated for the second time his Maoist-backed rival, 73-year-old former revolutionary Ram Raja Prasad Singh, who polled only 282 votes, two of which were later declared invalid.

Though the election was to have paved the way for a new government headed by the Maoists, it will now cast a cloud on future developments with senior Maoist leaders earlier warning that they would not sit in the government if they lost the election.

After winning a stunning victory in the April election, the defeat in the presidential contest will be a blow for the Maoists, showing up their lack of foresight and inability to carry the other major parties with them.

Yadav, who comes from Sapahi village in Dhanusha district along the India-Nepal border, is regarded as a national leader who had been resisting the polarisation of Nepalis into hill and plain communities.

His nomination was also backed by the third largest party, the Communist party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), the biggest party from the Terai plains.

Though Nepal held its first presidential election Saturday and Yadav emerged as the front-runner, a re-poll had to be ordered since he did not garner the simple majority — 298 votes — required by the constitution.

The Saturday election, however, elected MJF man Parmanand Jha as vice-president. Madhesis, people from the Terai plains, had been the most neglected and underprivileged community for a succession of governments, with little representation in the bureaucracy, judiciary and army.

Now, in an irony of fate, two of the nation’s top jobs have gone to two Madhesis.

‘Unholy alliance’

A stung Maoist chief Prachanda, who had his eyes on the presidency, called the opposition alliance “unholy” while the alliance said the politics of consensus had prevailed over the Maoists’ double-dealing.

The Maoists contributed to their own defeat by first forging a pact with the UML and then refusing to support the UML candidate.

After the spurned UML joined forces with Koirala’s party, the Maoists tried to woo the Terai parties.
However, in the end, the main Terai party went to the opposition alliance, resulting in Singh’s decisive defeat.

THE INDIAN CONNECTION

Yadav belongs to Madhesi community

Kathmandu, pti: Nepal’s first president Ram Baran Yadav, a doctor-turned-politician had most of his education in India.

Hailing from the Indian-origin Madhesi community, Yadav received his MBBS degree from Kolkata and MD from PGIMER, Chandigarh, spending about 11 years studying in India.

After practising medicine for eight years, Yadav joined Nepali Congress after the 1980 referendum held to choose between party-less Panchayat system and multiparty system.

A three-time MP from Dhanusha, he entered Parliament as an NC candidate for the first time in 1991. He was re-elected in 1999 and elected to the Constituent Assembly in April 10 this year.

A farmer’s son, Yadav, said he wants to take the peace process to its logical end and maintain friendly ties with both India and China.