President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Friday rejected both Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba’s claims to form the government. This particular step taken by the president has opened the doors for a mid-term election in the country.
President Bhandari had on Thursday made a call to the parliamentarians to stake claim to form the government as per Article 76 (5) of the Constitution of Nepal. Based on this, Deuba had submitted his claim to the president on Friday with the signatures of 149 members of the House of Representatives, which included 61 lawmakers of Nepali Congress, 49 from CPN (Moist Centre), 26 from Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction of CPN UML, 12 from Upendra Yadav-led faction of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal and one from Rastriya Janamorcha.
Likewise, Oli had also submitted his claim to the president stating that he had the support of 121 lawmakers of CPN UML and 32 parliamentarians of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal.
President Bhandari rejected the claims of both Oli and Deuba citing that there was an overlap in the names of lawmakers who claimed to support the candidates. She also mentioned that her office had received letters from parties requesting her to annul the support of certain lawmakers as they had gone against the respective party’s command. The president further informed that both the claims did not hold sufficient ground to confirm that they would win the vote of confidence in the Parliament to be appointed the prime minister, hence both the claims have been rejected.
Now the only option left would be to dissolve the House of Representatives and announce a date for mid-term elections.
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