Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretaries Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma have expressed dissent over the decision to give vote of confidence to Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The NC working committee meeting at New Baneshwore on Tuesday decided to vote in support of the Dahal government during the floor test to be held later on Tuesday.
Five NC leaders including Thapa, Sharma, Prakash Man Singh, Arjun Narsingh KC and Bal Bahadur KC opposed the meeting’s decision to vote for the Dahal government.
“Five leaders opined that the party should remain in the role of main opposition party. But other leaders said that the party should give vote of confidence to Dahal and stay in opposition,” an NC leader said.
The grand old party then convened parliamentary party meeting to brief about the working committee’s decision. The parliamentary party meeting also endorsed the working committee’s decision but lawmaker Pradeep Paudel dissented.
NC reportedly decided to give vote of confidence to counter CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli’s statement in the House on Monday. Oli had defended his act of dissolving the last House twice while addressing the first meeting of the newly elected House of Representatives (HoR) on Monday.
Dahal had quit the coalition with NC and CPN (Unified Socialist) on December 25 and became PM with support of CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party, RPP, Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party after NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to make him PM first.
Unified Socialist also decided to give vote of confidence after the party's secretariat meeting earlier on Tuesday.
