By Our Reporter The November 20 elections to the House of Representatives and Provincial Assemblies have produced shocking results for many high-profiled leaders, as they lost elections to their opponent candidates. Party chairman, vice chairmen and general secretaries of different parties faced humiliating defeats. Even powerful Home Minister of the Federal Government Bal Krishna Khand lost the election to the Rastriya Prajatantra Party leader Deepak Bohora in Rupandehi. The election results came more shocking to CPN-UML’s powerful general secretary Shankar Pokharel in Dang, senior vice chairman Ishwar Pokharel in Kathmandu-5, Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal chairman Upendra Yadav in Saptari-2, CPN (Unified Socialist) senior leader Jhalanath Khanal in Ilam 1 and NC leader Bijay Kumar Gachchcadar in Sunsari. Shankar Pokharel, who has been portrayed in the CPN-UML as the successor of party chairman KP Sharma Oli, lost the election to Maoist Centre candidate Rekha Sharma in Dang-2 with a thin margin of 193 votes. Sharma won by securing 26,880 votes and he got 26,687 votes. Vice chairman Ishwar Pokharel lost the election to Nepali Congress youth leader Pradip Paudel with a big margin of 5,079 votes in Kathmandu-5. Before the elections, the UML leaders were arguing Kathmandu-5 was the stronghold of UML. JSP-N chairman Yadav lost the election to Janamat Party chairman CK Raut in Saptari 2 with a big margin of 19,063 votes. Yadav got 16,979 votes and Raut 35,042. CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Khanal lost the election to UML candidate Mahesh Basnet in Ilam -2. Gachchhadar of NC lost the election to UML candidate Bhagawati Chaudhary in Sunsari-3. It is the first election ever lost by Gachchhadar since 1991. But this time, Bhagawati Chaudhary defeated him with a margin of 5,188 votes. Chaudhary was elected with 40,788 votes while Gachchhadar got 35, 600 votes. Likewise, CPN (Maoist Centre) general secretary Dev Gurung lost the election to UML’s Prithvi Subba Gurung in Lamjung, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal chairman Kamal Thapa lost the election to RPP’s Deepak Bahadur Singh in Makwanpur-1. Thapa was placed behind NC’s Mahalaxmi Upadhyaya. Krishna Sitaula of NC lost the election to RPP chairman Rajendra Lingden in Jhapa-3. Sitaula had also lost the election in 2017 to Lingden in the same constituency. NC’s Bal Bahadur KC, Sujata Koirala, Devendra Raj Kandel, former Speaker and Maoist Centre leader Onsari Gharti, Maoist leader Giriraj Mani Pokharel, Rajendra Mahato of the Loktantrik Samajwadi Party-Nepal, CPN (Unified Socialist) general secretary Jagannath Khatiwada, Deputy general secretary of UML Pradeep Gyawali, secretary Lekh Raj Bhatta and leader Mahes Basnet also lost the elections. Interestingly, six incumbent federal ministers, including the powerful Home Minister have suffered defeat in the elections. Home Minister and NC leader Bal Krishna Khand, Water and Resources and Irrigation Minister and the Maoist Centre leader Pampha Bhusal, Water Supply and Sanitation Minister Umakanta Chaudhary, Youth and Sports Minister Maheshwar Jung Gahatraj, Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Jeevan Ram Shrestha and State Minister Umesh Shrestha suffered the defeat. Three of them lost the election to newly formed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) candidates, one to Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and two to the CPN-UML candidates. Home Minister Khand lost the election with a margin of 2,681 votes. Bohara had garnered 36,717 votes against Khand's 34,036 votes. Similarly, the Rabi Lamichhane-led RSP's candidate Toshima Karki defeated Energy Irrigation Minister Bhusal in Lalitpur-3. Dr Karki, a medical doctor by profession, received 31,136 while Minister Bhusal received only 8,769 votes. Likewise, Tourism Minister Shrestha of the CPN (Unified Socialist) lost the election to Biraj Bhakta Shrestha of RSP in Kathmandu 8. Biraj Bhakta received 10,112 votes while Minister Shrestha received the third-highest votes at only 4,881. Similarly, CPN-UML's Surya Dhakal defeated Sports Minister Gahatraj in Banke-1. Dhakal received 25,026 votes and Gahatraj 19,632 votes. Minister Chaudhary, who is also the joint-general secretary of the Nepali Congress, was defeated by CPN-UML's Achyut Prasad Mainali in Bara-1. Mainali received 39,195 votes against Minister Chaudhary’s 30,056 votes. Likewise, State Minister Shrestha, who was a candidate in Chitwan-2 from Nepali Congress, was defeated by the biggest margin of 34,312 votes by Rabi Lamichhane, chairman of the RSP. Lamichhane garnered 49,300 votes and Minister Shrestha 14,988 votes. It is interesting to mention here that most of the NC leaders who lost the poll this time were close to Arzu Rana, the spouse of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Shrestha and Bishwanath Paudel had received party tickets to contest the elections of Chitwan because of Rana, but the voters outright rejected them.