Nepali Congress (NC) General Secretary Bishwa Prakash Sharma has said that former prime ministers should not be candidates for president.
Pointing that NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal and Nepal Samajwadi Party Chairman Baburam Bhattarai – all former prime ministers – are being talked about as potential presidential candidates, Sharma said no former prime minister should be a candidate for president.
Even though he had said himself that Deuba would also be an excellent candidate for the post, he has reached the conclusion that former prime ministers should not be candidates for president, Sharma said.
Talking to journalists outside the Parliament building at New Baneshwar on Wednesday, Sharma said NC will file candidacy for the post of president and claimed that CPN (Maoist Center) will support the NC candidate.
“We will file candidacy for president. When the prime minister supports our candidate, it will send a message,” Sharma said.
He said it would be natural for NC as the largest party in Parliament to get the post of president when the third-largest party Maoist Center has already got the prime minister and the second-largest party CPN-UML has got the speaker.
Sharma said NC has not finalized its candidate for president yet, adding that Ram Chandra Paudel or somebody else could become the candidate after discussion.
He said Maoist Center will support NC’s candidate regardless of who it may be and that the prime minister will get to do his job properly.
Sharma also said that the current ruling coalition could either unravel or continue if the candidate proposed by NC were to become president.
