Ram Chandra Poudel

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ram Chandra Poudel

• Ram Chandra Poudel is a Nepali politician who has served as President of the Nepali Congress, speaker of the lower house (Pratinidhi Sabha) of Nepal parliament, Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal, and third President of Nepal. He actively took part in all Nepali political movements since the 1960s and is one of the most reputed politicians in Nepal.

• He entered politics at the age of sixteen to oppose the imprisonment of then Nepali PM B. P. Koirala.

• He was very active in student politics and started Free Student Movement in 1962. He became the Saraswati College Student Union’s President in 1966 and became the founder-president of the Gandaki Student committee in the same year. He became the Democratic Socialist Youth League’s General Secretary in 1967. He founded Nepal Student Union in 1970.

  

• He worked very closely with the former Nepali PM Girija Prasad Koirala after Koirala returned from India to Nepal.

  

• He played a very determining role as the mediator to establish peace in Nepal in the mid-2000s.

• In 2010, he contested the parliamentary elections to become the Prime Minister of Nepal; however, he lost in all 17 rounds of voting. Two other candidates were Pushpa Kamal Dahal from the UCPN-Maoist and Jhala Nath Khanal from the UML. Khanal became the Prime Minister after securing a majority in the 17th round of voting.

• In 2017, He lost in the elections to the communist alliance’s Krishna Kumar Shrestha from Tanahun Constituency No. 1.

• He has written many books, articles, and editorials related to society and politics in Nepal. He has won many awards for his writings. Some of his books are Journey of Faith in 1996 and Socialism – In New Context in 2012.

• He defeated Subash Chandra Nembang to become the third President of Nepal and got 214 votes out of 332 Parliamentary votes and 352 votes out of 550 provincial votes from seven provinces in Nepal. He succeeded Bidya Devi Bhandari.

• He has also been jailed for more than a combined period of 15 years during his life.