Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal has met Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba on Thursday.
PM Dahal and Deuba talked for around an hour at the former’s residence in Baluwatar Thursday morning.
PM Dahal’s press advisor Govinda Acharya told Setopati that Dahal invited Deuba to discuss about regular operation of the House and other issues including passing different laws.
The main opposition NC has been raising the issue of cooperatives scam in the House and demanding resignation of Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane claiming he is implicated in the scam. But it has yet to obstruct the House over the issue.
This is the first one-on-one meeting between Dahal and Deuba since the former ended the coalition with NC and joined hands with CPN-UML on March 28, according to Acharya.
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.
