London: The Nepal Press Union UK and Europe branches have labeled the election of the Nepal Journalists’ Federation UK branch as fraudulent. In a joint statement issued on Saturday, Bipin Niraula, President of the Press Union UK branch, and Sanjay Kandel, President of the Europe branch, claimed that the election process was fraudulent due to the obstinacy of former President Naresh Khapangi Magar, who was appointed as the coordinator for the branch election, in defiance of the Nepal Journalists’ Federation’s central office’s directive dated Jyeshtha 23.
The statement mentions, “As per the letter from the Nepal Journalists’ Federation central office dated Jyeshtha 23, the convention was canceled. The election process became fraudulent due to the obstinacy of former President Naresh Khapangi Magar, who was appointed as the coordinator for the branch election.”
The statement further highlights that declaring a single candidate as the winner with 100% of the votes when there were three candidates for the President position is disgraceful and illegal.
The statement appeals to the relevant bodies to immediately investigate the outgoing President Dhruvaraj Aryal and election coordinator Khapangi Magar, who have allegedly contributed to the division of the organization. It asserts that ignoring the central office’s letter, maintaining a membership of only a handful of people for the past nine years, conducting a fraudulent election through unilateral decisions by the election coordinator, and disregarding an agreement made by the outgoing President Aryal with another President Bipin Niraula have led the organization to the brink of division.
The statement also condemns the act of withholding memberships without reason and collecting membership fees from most of the applicants. Additionally, it mentions that collecting funds in the name of membership to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) after the Nepal Journalists’ Federation’s membership in the IFJ had already been revoked, and not refunding the collected money so far, is evidence of financial misappropriation.