[4] He defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai in a landslide victory in the 1991 general election.

Known for his charismatic style, Bhandari propounded the popular communist principle or thought "People's Multiparty Democracy" (Nepali: जनताको बहुदलीय जनवाद).

In 1972, he became a central committee member of the Janabadi Sanskritik Morcha (Democratic Cultural Front), a student movement established by Pushpa Lal Shrestha.

Around 1976 he left Pushpa Lal's Communist Party of Nepal to create the Mukti Morcha Samuha ("Liberation Front Group"), which formed an alliance with the survivors of the Jhapa Movement in 1978.

He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) preceding the 1980 referendum and was elected General-Secretary at its Fourth National Congress in 1986.

[6] Of the three people inside the car, only the driver Amar Lama survived who was later abducted and killed by a group of unidentified gunmen in Kirtipur, Kathmandu;[citation needed] the two leaders Madan Bhandari and Jibaraj Ashrit died.