Saturday, September 25, 2021

Rabina vies for the NRNA President

Kathmandu, Sept. 23

Incumbent Vice-President of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) Rabina Thapa has announced her candidacy for the President of the organisation's International Coordination Committee.

She has opened the season for candidacy announcement along with the aspirants for the post of Vice-President and General Secretary of the NRNA.

Thapa's team includes Jaya Prakash Gurung and Binaya Adhikary, candidates for the posts of VP and GS respectively.

They announced their candidacy at a programme organised in the Capital on Thursday and published their election agenda.

The NRNA international conference is slated for October 13-15 in Kathmandu.

Thapa said that her main agenda was to give priority to the citizenship issue to implement the theme 'Once a Nepali, always a Nepali'.

"In absence of citizenship, many NRNs are losing their parental properties back in Nepal. Therefore, I have given priority to this issue," she said.

Likewise, she stated that she would initiate a process to make the NRNA election a direct one. "To ensure the voting rights of Nepalis in foreign land in the elections in their home country and resolve the issues in foreign employment, you should elect me to the leadership," she said to the NRNs.

Thapa currently resides in Maryland in the United States of America.

VP candidate Gurung said that his agenda was to establish the rights of the ex-Gorkha Army who had served the United Kingdom. "There is a kind of syndicate in the NRNA and I have decided to announce my candidacy to break it," he said.

Similarly, GS candidate Adhikary’s agenda included implementing direct election system in the NRNA, promoting investment in Nepal, removing the hurdles in inheriting the parental properties in Nepal and forming an expert committee to expand the lobbying capacity of the NRNA.

Established 18 years ago, the NRNA is a non-government global organisation and network of people of Nepali origin in 82 countries.

The government of Nepal has given legal status to Nepali diaspora with the promulgation of Non-Resident Nepali Act, 2007. Nepali citizens living outside the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member countries or people of Nepali origin holding foreign nationality other than SAARC nations are considered as NRNs.

Recently, NRNA has established a development fund worth Rs. 10 billion to support in Nepal's development. It has supported rebuilding the Laprak settlement which was devastated by the 2015 Earthquake.

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 24 September 2021. 

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