Ashta Laxmi Shakya was appointed chief minister (CM) of Bagmati on Wednesday.
Shakya, who has long been close to Senior Leader of UML Madhav Kumar Nepal, has become CM with blessings of CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli hours after the Khanal-Nepal faction applied for registration of CPN-UML (Socialist) at the Election Commission.
Having been a fierce critic of Oli for the past few years she was a little restrained in recent days and was appointed CM after Dor Mani Paudel from the Oli faction, who had defeated her in the election for UML parliamentary party leader over three years back, resigned as both parliamentary party leader and CM earlier on Wednesday.
UML has a slim majority in the provincial assembly but there are already talks about how long the first female CM in the country will get to serve as her government will be in minority even if just a few UML lawmakers choose to join the new party led by Nepal.
UML has 56 lawmakers in the 109-strong provincial assembly including speaker. The Khanal-Nepal faction claims it has more than 15 lawmakers excluding the team of Shakya. Her government would be in minority even if a few of those were to join the new party to be registered under Nepal.
CPN (Maoist Center) has 23 seats, Nepali Congress (NC) 22, and Yadav-Bhattarai faction of Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) one in the province. The alliance of these three parties and the new party of Nepal can then form another government.
Lawmaker Laxman Lamsal, who is close to Nepal, claims that Shakya consulted Nepal before becoming parliamentary party leader and has become CM with his consent. "Which party she will chose after split of UML will be important. That will determine the length of her term," Lamsal added.
UML lawmakers will have 21 days from the day the Nepal-led party went into registration process to join the new party. The Khanal-Nepal faction believes that she will join the new party since she consulted Nepal before becoming CM.
Lawmakers from the Khanal-Nepal faction may, however, not allow her to serve for long if she opts to remain in UML led by Oli especially because she changed camps at the decisive moment.
Her days at the helm will be numbered if that were to happen.
