Pokhara: CPN (Maoist Centre) leader Krishna Dhital has been elected as the Speaker of the Gandaki Provincial Assembly.
He defeated Congress’s Saraswati Aryal Tiwari in the voting in which 59 MPs participated on Saturday. While Dhital got 33 votes, Tiwari got only 26 votes.
Dhital received votes from CPN UML (22), CPN Maoist Centre (8), RPP (2) and one vote of independent MP Deepak Manange.
He is an elected Provincial Member of Parliament from Bhimsen rural municipality 1 (2) of Gorkha, while he is also a central member of CPN (Maoist Centee) and in-charge of Gorkha district. In the power sharing, an agreement was reached in Gandaki Province that the CPN-UML would get the Chief Minister and the Maoist Centre would get Speaker.
Accordingly, Khaga Raj Adhikari, the leader of the parliamentary party of CPN (UML), has been appointed as the Chief Minister and received a vote of confidence from the Provincial Assembly on Friday. There are 60 members in the Gandaki Provincial Assembly. There are 27 members of the Congress, 22 of the CPN UML, eight of the Maoist Centre, two of the RPP and one independent member.
