Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ need not seek another vote of confidence in the House of Representatives after the Rastriya Swatantra Party in the ruling alliance withdrew support to the government, the Himalayan nation’s top political leaders said on Saturday.
The decision was taken by the top leaders of the ruling coalition at a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar, said Hitraj Pandey, the chief whip of the CPN-Maoist Centre.
The meeting was attended by top leaders of the five-party alliance, including Prime Minister Prachanda, Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN-Unified Socialist president Madhav Kumar Nepal and Janata Samajwadi Party president Upendra Yadav.
The Prachanda-led government enjoys a comfortable majority in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) even after the Rastriya Swatantra Party led by Ravi Lamichhane withdrew its support to the government, Pandey told PTI. Therefore, the prime minister does not need to seek again a vote of confidence in the HoR, he added.
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won two seats out of three in the recently-concluded by-elections, withdrew support to the government on Friday after it failed to reach a power-sharing deal with Prime Minister Prachanda. The RSP alleged that the Prachanda government has failed to address corruption issue. The RSP, the fourth-largest party in Nepal’s Parliament, has 22 lawmakers in the lower house.
Even though the RSP, which participated in the Prachanda-led government formed in December last year, left the government in February, it did not withdraw its support ‘for the sake of stability’.Prachanda, who was appointed prime minister in December, took the vote of confidence for the first time in January and again in March this year. Prachanda on Thursday inducted three new ministers in the Cabinet, taking the strength of the council of ministers to 22, including two ministers of state. All the three ministers belong to the Nepali Congress party.The number of ministers from Nepali Congress in the Prachanda-led Cabinet has now reached eight, including a deputy prime minister.
