Nepali Congress (NC) has said that the decision to join the government will be taken after discussion with Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The ruling coalition formed on Christmas Day unraveled in two months with the largest party in the coalition CPN-UML deciding to withdraw its support from the government on Monday. A total of 16 ministries remain vacant with Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), RPP and now UML quitting the government and Dahal will now have to take the floor test again.
“A new situation has been created from today with the decision of UML to withdraw support from and quit the government,” NC Spokesperson Prakash Sharan Mahat told Setopati. “PM would take initiative on issues like NC joining the government and convene meeting.”
He revealed that the eight parties including—NC, CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), CPN (Unified Socialist), Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP), Janamat Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and Nagarik Unmukti Party—while deciding to field common coalition candidate for president on Friday had agreed to give vote of confidence to PM Dahal if he were to get into difficulty.
He said that the eight parties would now have to meet and decide how to move forward, and issues like joining the government would be discussed. “Whether to join the government after PM passes floor test or before that would be known only after discussion,” he stated. “We had given vote of confidence even earlier.”
Dahal had quit the coalition with NC and Unified Socialist on December 25, 2022 and became prime minister (PM) with support of CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), RPP, Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party after Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba refused to make him PM first.
But NC surprisingly voted for the Dahal government during the previous floor test on January 10 sowing the seeds for unravelling of the coalition.
