The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) has proposed to postpone election for National Assembly chair.
Parliamentary party leader of NC in the Upper House Krishna Prasad Sitaula has proposed so during the all-party meeting convened by Vice-chair Urmila Aryal. Sitaula proposed to postpone the election by a few days pointing that the newly elected lawmakers have yet to properly know fellow lawmakers. He has added that postponing the election by a few days will not make much difference as NC will remain in the opposition after formation of the new coalition.
Leaders of other parties, however, have insisted that the election should not be postponed.
CPN (Maoist Center) is the largest party in the Upper House with 17 seats. NC is the second largest party with 16, and UML third with 10.
CPN (Unified Socialist), formed after splitting from UML, has eight seats while Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) has three. Loktantrik Samajwadi Party and Rastriya Janamorcha has one each. One seat to be nominated by the president on recommendation of the government remains vacant.
The new ruling coalition is expected to field candidate for National Assembly chair from Maoist Center and vice-chair from UML.
The meeting between Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President Rabi Lamichhane and Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) Chairman Upendra Yadav held at Baluwatar on March 3 agreed to form a new ruling coalition. Unified Socialist has also joined the new coalition since then.
The previous coalition was formed around a year ago before the election for president after Dahal broke the then coalition with UML. NC, Maoist Center, JSP and Unified Socialist had then decided to revive the pre-election alliance.
Dahal had quit the pre-election alliance with NC and Unified Socialist on December 25, 2022 and became prime minister (PM) with support of CPN-UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party, 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.
Oli had assured NC that UML will not ally with Maoist Center at any cost and would instead ally with NC to form the new government to encourage Deuba to break the agreement to make Dahal PM first.
