There are nearly 650,000 people with disabilities in the country. However, political parties have failed to ensure their dignified participation in the Provincial Assembly and the House of Representatives. Due to this lack of meaningful representation in Parliament, the voices advocating for the rights of people with disabilities remain unheard.

How many people have ever imagined seeing a person with a disability in the Prime Minister’s seat? Why don’t political parties strive to make a person with a disability the Prime Minister?

Journalist Gajendra Budhathoki, who has been raising these very questions, has become a candidate himself in the upcoming March 5 (Falgun 21) election. Having acquired a disability seventeen years ago due to a spinal cord injury, he has built a strong reputation as an economic journalist. Known for his fierce advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities on social media and public platforms, he is now a proportional representation candidate for the House of Representatives from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party.

At a time when representation for people with disabilities in the Federal Parliament and provincial levels is minimal, he explains that he chose the party that offered him a platform.

“My priority is working for the welfare of people with disabilities over any political ideology,” he says. “That is why I went with the party that gave me a space.”

He understands that reaching a position of political leadership as a person with a disability is an uphill battle, likened to ‘chewing iron flakes’. “I know that even when people with disabilities are fielded as candidates, they aren’t often elected,” Gajendra says. “But that doesn’t mean we stop claiming our rights.”

Rajesh Sah, President of the Federation of Persons with Disabilities in Madhesh Province, is also a proportional representation candidate representing the Rastriya Nirman Dal Nepal. He explains that despite working for years in various organizations, he decided to run because political parties have made no effort to bring people with disabilities into political leadership. Noting that major parties rarely nominate people with disabilities, he says, “Large parties involve heavy bargaining, which is why I chose to enter through a smaller party to fight for the rights granted by the state.”

Both Rajesh and Gajendra maintain that they became candidates because the lack of dignified representation in Parliament means the rights and voices of people with disabilities are never raised.

According to the 2021/2022 (2078 BS) National Census, there are nearly 650,000 people with disabilities in the country. However, parties have failed to ensure their respectful participation in provincial and federal assemblies. In the election scheduled for March 5 (Falgun 21), there are 85 candidates with disabilities under the proportional representation category.

A total of 63 parties have submitted names for 3,213 candidates in their closed lists, from which 110 members will be selected for the House of Representatives. Although parties included 85 people with disabilities in these closed lists, past examples show they are rarely prioritized during the final selection.

According to Election Commission data from 2022/2023 (2079 BS), out of the 825 total members elected to the Federal Parliament and the seven Provincial Assemblies, only 3 were people with disabilities. These included Kaluram Rai from the House of Representatives (proportional), Laxmi Ghimire in the Bagmati Provincial Assembly, and Sunita Thapa in the Gandaki Provincial Assembly.

According to data from the Election Commission and the National Federation of the Disabled-Nepal, the 2017 (2074 BS) elections saw representation for only 9 people across the Federal Parliament and seven Provincial Assemblies (including 4 National Assembly members and 1 directly elected member). When the 59-member National Assembly was formed in 2017 (2074 BS), there were 7 reserved seats for people with disabilities or minorities; the inclusion of 4 people with disabilities in those seats brought the total count to 9.

One individual not included in those statistics is Rewati Raman Ghimire, who was elected to the Lumbini Provincial Assembly from Dang 1 (1). Having lost his hand in an accident, Rewati Raman holds a formal disability identity card. He noted that his name might have been omitted from the Commission and Federation’s lists because he did not contest under the specific disability quota.

As a candidate for the CPN-UML from Dang 1 in the upcoming March 5 (Falgun 21) election, he believes that parties are finally starting to make an effort to bring people with disabilities into leadership. “The issue of reservations for people with disabilities is just beginning to gain traction within political parties,” he said. “This struggle has started slowly and things should improve from here.”

It has been over three decades since the formal campaign for the political representation and rights of people with disabilities began in Nepal.

During this period, the constitution, acts, laws and policy guidelines have granted people with disabilities the right to political participation. However, Devi Datta Acharya, President of the National Federation of the Disabled - Nepal, points out that in practice, people with disabilities are treated merely as voters.

The proportional representation system was adopted specifically to ensure the political representation of people with disabilities and marginalized communities. Yet, Acharya notes that this system has been captured by the wealthy and the well-connected, preventing people with disabilities from reaching Parliament. “This country has not been able to view a person with a disability as its leader and the parties have accepted us even less,” he says. “That is why we are not trusted in leadership roles and are not being elected."

A closed list just for show

According to Article 84, Clause (3) of the Constitution of Nepal (2015), political parties must ensure the representation of people with disabilities when nominating candidates for the House of Representatives under the proportional representation system.

Furthermore, Article 42 (1) of the Constitution mandates that the participation of people with disabilities in state bodies must be ensured based on the principle of proportional inclusion.

Based on these constitutional provisions, every party includes the names of people with disabilities in their closed lists for federal and provincial elections. However, parties do not receive enough votes to elect every candidate on their list. Consequently, when the final selection is made from the closed list, people with disabilities are often left out.

Article 84 (2) of the Constitution of Nepal explicitly ensures representation based on population for women, Dalits, indigenous groups (Adivasi Janajati), Khas Arya, Madhesis, Tharus, Muslims and backward regions under the proportional representation system. However, when parties distribute their allotted seats among these clusters, the selection of people with disabilities is consistently pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

Some parties fail to nominate candidates with disabilities altogether. According to the 2017 (2074 BS) election result report, out of the 49 political parties participating in the proportional representation category for the House of Representatives, only 38 included people with disabilities on their lists. The remaining 11 parties did not include them at all. Even among the 38 parties that did field such candidates, only one person with a disability was ultimately elected as a member of parliament.

In the previous 2022 (2079 BS) election, only 37 out of the 48 parties participating in the proportional representation category for the House of Representatives included candidates with disabilities in their closed lists. However, only one person from among them was elected.

Across the two House of Representatives elections in 2017 and 2022, out of the 220 members selected through the proportional system, only two individuals with disabilities were elected.

These representatives were Chudamani Khadka (physical disability) from the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre) in 2017, and Kaluram Rai (visually impaired) from the CPN-UML in 2022.

Even weaker representation in the Provincial Assembly

In the 2017 (2074 BS) election, the representation of people with disabilities in the Provincial Assembly appeared even weaker. Among the parties fielding candidates for the House of Representatives, only about half submitted closed lists that included people with disabilities for the Provincial Assembly.

Out of a total of 3,566 proportional representation candidates across all seven provinces, only 111 people with disabilities were on the closed lists. When 220 members were ultimately selected from these lists across the seven provinces, only 3 people with disabilities were chosen: Shova Lama from Madhesh Province, Kumarinand Bam from Sudurpashchim Province, and Bhimsen Khatri from Bagmati Province.

Although the number of people with disabilities on the provincial proportional closed lists increased slightly in the 2022 (2079 BS) election compared to 2017, the state of representation did not see significant improvement. While parties included the names of 241 people with disabilities in their closed lists across all seven provinces, only 2 were ultimately elected as provincial assembly members, Laxmi Ghimire from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party in Bagmati Province and Sunita Thapa from the Nepali Congress in Gandaki Province.

Whether in the Provincial Assembly or the House of Representatives, it appears that even the parties winning the highest number of proportional seats fail to prioritize people with disabilities on their closed lists. In the 2022 election, for instance, the Nepali Congress, which won the highest number of 9 proportional seats in the Madhesh Provincial Assembly, did not nominate a single person with a disability.

The fact that the Nepali Congress, which won 40 seats in the 2017 House of Representatives proportional election, did not nominate any candidates with disabilities highlights the parties’ indifference toward the practical implementation of inclusivity.

There is a clear trend of either excluding people with disabilities from the proportional closed lists altogether or, if included, placing them at the very bottom of the ranking to prevent their eventual election. In this regard, the Election Commission appears to grant parties a free pass, as it lacks the legal authority to take action against those who fail to include people with disabilities. Yagya Prasad Bhattarai, Joint Secretary of the Election Commission’s Law and Political Party Management Division, states, “We inform the parties but we cannot reject a closed list even if they do not field candidates with disabilities. There is no law for that.”

The House of Representatives Member Election Act, 2017, mentions that when declaring proportional election results, representation for backward regions and people with disabilities should be ensured ‘as far as possible’ according to their ranking on the closed list. However, Devi Datta Acharya, President of the National Federation of the Disabled - Nepal, argues that the use of the phrase ‘as far as possible’ in the law prevents this provision from being mandatory for parties. According to him, if proportional representation were ensured based strictly on population data, a minimum of 2.2% participation should be mandatory.

He explains that while inclusivity is meant to bring marginalized communities into leadership, in practice, these proportional quotas are being occupied by individuals from powerful backgrounds. “In the last election, figures at the center of power like Arzu Deuba, Binod Chaudhary and Raghuji Pant reached Parliament through the inclusivity quota,” says Devi Datta. “Under such circumstances, it is evident that inclusivity is failing to reach the communities that are actually being left behind.”

Madan Krishna Shrestha, a Nepali Congress leader and former central committee member, alleges that the party has repeatedly blocked him from contesting direct elections simply because of his disability. He says that although the party has placed his name on the proportional list for the upcoming election, he remains dissatisfied. “They only nominate us for the proportional list for show,” Madan Krishna mentions. “Later, they will push us aside by claiming there weren’t enough seats for the specific clusters.”

Communist Party of Nepal leader Shiva Khakurel argues that people with disabilities are being left out because the Constitution itself does not explicitly mandate their election. “If people with disabilities are to be elected, it must be written directly into the Constitution,” he says. “Otherwise, one party might nominate them while others fail to fulfill their responsibility.”

Women left even further behind

According to the 2021/2022 (2078 BS) census, 45.30% of the nearly 650,000 people with disabilities in the country are women. Following the implementation of federalism, only 4 people with disabilities were among the 825 members elected to the Federal Parliament and seven Provincial Assemblies in the 2022 (2079 BS) elections. Of those elected via the proportional system, only 2 were women.

Election Commission data shows that after the 2017 (2074 BS) elections, there was a total representation of 9 people with disabilities across the Federal and all seven Provincial Assemblies. Among them, only 2 were women with disabilities, both of whom were elected to the Provincial Assembly via the proportional system. To date, no woman with a disability has reached the House of Representatives or the National Assembly. In the 2017 House of Representatives proportional closed list, there were 30 men with disabilities but only 8 women.

In the 2022 election, the proportional closed list for the House of Representatives included 37 men and only 13 women. According to the National Women’s Federation, out of the 35,041 local representatives elected nationwide in 2017, 21 were people with disabilities, including 6 women.

In the 2022 local elections, while representation for people with disabilities increased to 40 out of 35,045 elected representatives, the number of women with disabilities remained at just 6.

It has been 14 years since Nepal ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), which ensures the equal participation of people with disabilities in politics. To implement international conventions and constitutional commitments, the ‘Gender and Inclusion Policy in Election Management, 2020 (2077 BS)’ is also in effect, aiming to make all elections gender-friendly and inclusive based on the principle of proportional inclusion.

According to this policy, political parties are required to ensure the representation of women, people with disabilities and marginalized groups when nominating candidates for the House of Representatives and Provincial Assembly under the proportional election system. However, in practice, while parties include people with disabilities in their proportional closed lists, the practice of actually getting them elected remains weak.

Political parties, however, are not ready to accept this criticism. Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, head of the CPN-UML’s Mass Organization Department, says, “We are doing our best and have included them in the closed lists, but difficulties may arise due to the various clusters. It will likely improve gradually.”

On the other hand, the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which emerged as a new force, won 13 proportional seats in the 2022 (2079 BS) election but did not elect a single person with a disability. The party’s General Secretary, Kabindra Burlakoti, states, “In this upcoming election, we will ensure that people with disabilities are elected. This happened due to a lack of available quotas, not because of our intentions.”

Nirmala Dhital, from the Federation of Women with Disabilities, argues that despite the reasons given by political parties, in practice, they limit people with disabilities to running sister organizations while filling closed lists with only their preferred, well-known leaders. Sharing her experience as a CPN-UML cadre, she says, “We are considered suitable for party work. But when it comes to the closed list, the path to becoming an MP, they only want famous leaders they already know. How much longer must we explain that people with disabilities have capability too?”

That 'cluster' corrected by the Election Commission

In 2017, the Election Commission included a 2.22% cluster for persons with disabilities in the draft Provincial Assembly Proportional Representation Election Guidelines, similar to provisions for women and Dalits.

Journalist Gajendra Budhathoki, who reported on the issue at the time, felt the Commission had finally championed their rights and felt a sense of empowerment upon reviewing the draft. However, the cluster for persons with disabilities was later removed from the final version. “A week after my report, the ‘Persons with Disabilities (2.22%)’ column in serial number 7 of Schedule 16 of the original guidelines was entirely deleted.”

Journalist Gajendra alleges that political pressure was the reason the Commission revised the draft and removed the cluster. Former Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav explained that they initially included the percentage because the Supreme Court had ordered them to ensure the representation of persons with disabilities before the election but they later removed it as they found no constitutional basis to secure that specific percentage. “It is something that requires everyone’s effort. We tried our best,” he recalled of the event from eight years ago. “The Constitution mandates that representation be secured even if a specific percentage is not defined, so we adhered to that.”

Birendra Raj Pokharel, a leading figure in the disability rights movement, alleges that the problem persists because most top political leaders harbor exclusionary attitudes toward people with disabilities. He claims that the representation of persons with disabilities is diminished by inserting phrases such as ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘also’ into legal rights provisions. “Other minorities may have their own issues, but that should not be a reason to diminish the problems and representation of persons with disabilities,” he stated.

Issues overlooked due to the absence of persons with disabilities in Parliament

Following the ‘Gen-Z Uprising’ of September 8 and 9, Kaluram Rai was the only member of the dissolved House of Representatives with a disability (visual impairment). He recalls experiencing constant distrust and neglect as the sole person with a disability in the House.

He shared that when he requested time for a special debate on disability issues in Parliament, he was insulted with the remark, “What is so special about your case?” He complains that despite repeatedly raising issues regarding disability-friendly transportation, physical infrastructure and public service facilities to ensure the easy movement of persons with disabilities, his concerns were ignored. “Perhaps it’s because there were no other representatives raising the same issues,” Kaluram says, “But no matter how many issues I raised, my voice carried no weight.”

Devi Datta Acharya, President of the National Federation of the Disabled - Nepal, states that the scarcity of persons with disabilities in Parliament is having the greatest impact on legislation. Even now, Article 31 of the Constitution mentions providing education through sign language to persons with vocal disabilities. He notes that if there had been representation of persons with disabilities, provisions for speech therapy for those with vocal disabilities would have been included instead. Therefore, Devi Datta explains, such technical aspects are often missed during the law-making process due to the absence of persons with disabilities.

The Disability Rights Act, the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the National Policy 2080 specify the use of the term ‘persons with disabilities. However, this terminology is still missing from Nepal’s Education Act and Election Act.

When persons with disabilities are absent from Parliament, policies and programs are not formulated with them in mind. Although the Ministry of Education claims to promote inclusive education in accordance with the Constitution and Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, its programs emphasize building special schools rather than fostering genuine inclusion.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2017, mandates the management of rehabilitation centers to assist in the recovery of children with disabilities. Consequently, such centers have been established from the federal to the local levels. However, a study has shown that family-oriented and community-based rehabilitation is more cost-effective than operating these expensive centers. The study concludes that this approach is more appropriate for children with disabilities. Research conducted by sociologist Dipesh Ghimire and others regarding the protection of human rights in the rehabilitation of the elderly and persons with disabilities found that up to 32,000 rupees per month is spent on a single individual in these centers.

In contrast, if even half of that amount were provided directly to the family, a child with disabilities could grow up under the care of their own home while successfully integrating into society.

“This is an oversight caused by the absence of persons with disabilities in the forums where these bills and acts are drafted. Therefore, increasing the representation of persons with disabilities would ultimately make it easier and more beneficial for the state to formulate policies, regulations and programs,” explains sociologist Dipesh.

Prakash Panth, a former member of the National Assembly, also admits that disability-friendly laws and policies cannot be advanced due to the low presence of persons with disabilities in Parliament. “One or two voices are not enough; our issues can only become national priorities if there is at least 2.2 percent participation of persons with disabilities at every level, from provincial to federal parliaments,” he says. According to him, political parties are even stripping away the rights that persons with disabilities should receive. “They raise the issue everywhere for the sake of appearances but they don’t actually elect us. Even when they do, they treat it as an act of mercy,” Prakash said.

Activist Nirmala Dhital states that the lack of effective representation of women with disabilities in Parliament has become an additional burden for this community. According to her, being a woman combined with having a disability, results in them facing double the violence and exclusion.

She raises the question of who will raise the issues of self-employment and income generation for the many women with disabilities who are economically dependent and when they will do so. Dhital says, “If women with disabilities, who must raise these issues based on their own lived experiences, are not even given a place on the closed lists, there is no meaning in the state merely wearing a mask of inclusivity.”

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