Nepali Congress (NC) lawmaker Ishwari Devi Neupane has filed candidacy for speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR).
Neupane filed nomination for the post at the Parliament building in New Baneshwar on Wednesday afternoon.
NC General Secretary and lawmaker Bishwa Prakash Sharma is the proposer and CPN (Unified Socialist) lawmaker Prakash Jwala is the supporter.
Neupane, who hails from Kailali, is a central member of NC. She had served in the Women’s Association for a long time and also headed the party’s women department. She is close to party president Sher Bahadur Deuba.
Earlier on Wednesday, a meeting of NC officer bearers and parliamentary party had decided to field Neupane as the candidate for speaker.
The HoR is meeting on Thursday morning for the speaker’s election.
NC is preparing to hold discussion with parties including Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Unified Socialist and Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP) to get their support in the speaker’s election.
Unified Socialist Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal and lawmaker Prakash Jwala had visited the NC parliamentary party for discussion on Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier, Unified Socialist Chairman Nepal and JSP Chairman Upendra Yadav had also held discussion with Deuba at his residence in Dhumbarahi in the morning.
NC has 89 lawmakers in the HoR, JSP has 12, Unified Socialist has 10 and LSP has four.
CPN-UML lawmaker Devraj Ghimire has also filed candidacy for speaker on Wednesday. He is supported by the ruling coalition.
