Kathmandu: Political parties in Nepal
were working hard today to arrive at a last minute consensus
candidate for the post of new Prime Minister, with the
scheduled election being postponed for three hours.
The election process was scheduled to start at 11 am.
but the Work Management Committee of the Parliament postponed
it by three hours to allow parties to make last minute efforts
to reach at consensus.
Three candidates from the major parties are in the
fray for the election.
Meanwhile, UCPN-Maoist has decided to back CPN-UML
candidate Khanal if he can receive support from 401 members of
the Constituent Assembly, according to party sources.
After the CPN-UML decided not to contest the election
in case their candidate could not get support from 401
Parliament members, the Maoist Office Bearers` meeting decided
to back Khanal by withdrawing Prachanda from the contest.
"We are close to receive support from 401 member of
the Parliament," claimed Surya Thapa, member of the Publicity
Committee of the UML.
With the backing of the Maoists, who have 238 seats,
we can get 401 members` support if the fringe parties and the
Madhesi People`s Rights Forum Nepal with 25 seats extend
support to our candidate, he said.
The Nepali Congress and CPN-UML has 114 and 109 seats
respectively in the 601 member Constituent Assembly.
The grouping of four Madhesi parties having combined
strength of 84 seats in the Parliament did not field their
candidate and they have said that they would support any
candidate who addresses the issue of Madhesi people.
Madhav Kumar Nepal, leader of the CPN-UML, has
tendered his resignation on June 30 under the Maoists`
pressure.
After parties failed to form a national consensus
government as per the call made by the president the process
of forming a majority government started from July 12.
However, if any candidate could not receive more than
50 per cent votes the election process will be repeated.
PTI
