Nepali Congress (NC) has formed parliamentary board to distribute election tickets.
The NC working committee meeting on Sunday has formed the board including NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba, leader Ram Chandra Paudel and others, according to NC Chief Secretary Krishna Prasad Paudel.
The 25-strong parliamentary board should include 14 office-bearers and 11 nominated by party president, according to the party statute.
But he has included just Paudel out of the 11 he is allowed to nominate and has not included Shekhar Koirala who lost the runoff for NC president in the recent general convention in the board. Paudel had helped Deuba get reelected party president by deciding to stay neutral in the voting process despite leading the anti-Deuba camp that included Koirala and others before the general convention.
An office-bearer close to Deuba claimed that the party president asked Koirala about who should be included in the board. “He took the name of Paudel when the president consulted Shekhar Koirala asking who should be included in the parliamentary board apart from the office-bearers,” the office-bearer told Setopati. “Ten more out of the 11 are yet to be nominated. President may include Koirala later in the parliamentary board.”
Deuba has formed the board on the first of the two days allocated for filing nominations following criticism that he is preparing to finalize candidates for metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities through the NC working committee.
“The parliamentary board meeting has authorized President Deuba to distribute tickets for metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities due to lack of time,” another office-bearer said. “President will consult top leaders and make arrangements for awarding tickets in the metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities that the party has got.”
(This news report has been updated including non-inclusion of Shekhar Koirala after first publication)
