Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal has passed the floor test in the House of Representatives (HoR) Wednesday.
The Dahal government received 157 votes in the floor test held Wednesday while 110 voted against it. One lawmaker stayed neutral. A total of 268 lawmakers were present in the House.
The five parties in the ruling coalition--CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Center), Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and CPN (Unified Socialist)--all voted in support of the government. The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC), Janamat Party, Rastriya Janamorcha Nepal and others voted against the government.
UML has 79 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR), Maoist Center 32, RSP 21, JSP 12, and Unified Socialist 10. NC has 88 seats.
The meeting between Maoist Chairman and Prime Minister 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. CPN (Unified Socialist) has also joined the 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.
Dahal was constitutionally required to seek floor test again after the largest party in the House, NC, decided to withdraw support from the government.
