Four lawmakers have been granted voting rights just 16 hours before the National Assembly election to be held in Lumbini on Monday.
The Election Commission has granted voting rights to the four lawmakers expelled by Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), according to Communication Expert with the District Election Office, Dang Gehendra Kunwar.
"The total number of provincial lawmakers who can vote has increased to 83 as the Election Commission granted rights to four more after five in Sunday afternoon," Kunwar stated.
JSP had expelled Santosh Pandey, Bijay Yadav, Kalpana Pandey and Suman Sharma Rayamajhi from the provincial assembly on April 29 after they joined the Shankar Pokharel Cabinet immediately after the party registered no-confidence motion against Pokharel in coordination with Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Center) on April 19 proposing Kul Prasad KC of Maoist Center as the next chief minister (CM).
But the Supreme Court (SC) on May 17 had ordered to not immediately implement the decision to expel the four lawmakers.
The opposition alliance has cried foul at the decision to grant voting rights just 16 hours before voting is scheduled to begin in Ghorahi of Dang.
The weightage of a vote of province assembly member is 48 while it is 18 in case of the chairs/mayors and vice-chairs/deputy mayors.
The post is vacant after Chandra Bahadur Khadka of CPN (Maoist Center) joined CPN-UML.
Ruling UML has fielded Khadka in the election who is also supported by the Thakur-Mahato faction of JSP that includes the four lawmakers whose voting rights have been granted Sunday.
The opposition alliance including Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (Maoist Center), Yadav-Bhattarai faction of JSP, Khanal-Nepal faction of UML, and Rashtriya Janamorcha has jointly fielded Driga Narayan pandey who recently resigned as provincial lawmaker of UML to join NC.
