There is still uncertainty about the person to administer oath of office and secrecy to the newly elected House of Representatives (HoR) members with the oldest lawmaker yet to be formally determined.
Mahindra Raya Yadav of Nepal Samajwadi Party, Chitra Bahadur KC of Rastriya Janamorcha, Mahantha Thakur of Loktantrik Samajwadi Party and Pashupati Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana of RRP are in the list of senior most lawmakers.
Secretary with the Federal Parliament Secretariat Roj Nath Pandey said that the senior most lawmaker out of them will be determined on Wednesday.
“Swearing in has been scheduled for December 22. The Election Commission will officially inform about the oldest HoR member on December 21,” he stated.
There is practice of the oldest HoR member chairing the House meeting until speaker is elected. The oldest lawmaker is sworn in by the president and then administers oath of office and secrecy to the rest of HoR lawmakers.
Thakur, KC and Rana are all above 80 while Yadav is 85 as per the details of Election Commission. But Yadav says his age has been increased in the citizenship certificate and he is actually more than five years younger than the age mentioned there. “It will be done in accordance to the law,” he told Setopati.
Yadav was also the oldest HoR member after the election in 2017 as per the official record but Thakur had chaired the House meeting as Yadav did not attend the first House meeting.
KC and Rana were not elected then.
KC was born on February 2, 1941 while Rana was born on May 7 the same year. Thakur was born a year later.
