KATHMANDU: Amid continued political rift, President Bidya Devi Bhandari has called an all-party meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the prevailing situation.
An official from the office of the President confirmed that the meeting has been summoned for 4 PM on Tuesday where the situation of the contemporary political stalemate would be discussed. “President has invited leaders of parties representing in parliament as well as some former Prime Ministers,” Dr Bheshraj Adhikari, Secretary of President said.
However, it’s not clear whether opposition parties, including Nepali Congress and UCPN (Maoist Centre) have accepted such call from the President as her role was quite controversial in the past.
Nepal plunged into a state of political stalemate after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli recommended the dissolution of Parliament to the President. Terming the move as a breach of the Constitution by the Prime Minister, the decision was challenged in Supreme Court and on February 23, the apex court reinstated the Parliament.
Weeks after announcing the verdict over the dissolution of Parliament, the Supreme Court later revoked the unification of the erstwhile ruling Nepal Communist Party and declared the merger between the erstwhile CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist Centre) void.
After Supreme Court’s latest decision, Oli who earlier was leading a majority government has lost many of the seats in the Parliament and pressure has been mounting on him to prove his majority.
Now, Oli’s CPN-UML (Unified Marxist Leninist) has 120 seats in Parliament followed by Nepali Congress with 63 sets (2 suspended), Maoist Centre (53), and Janata Samajbadi Party with 34 seats (2 suspended). There is an addition of 3 seats in Parliament out of which one is independent while the other two are from two different parties.
However, Prachanda-led UCPN (Maoist Centre) has not withdrawn it’s support but sent letters to ministers, including Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, to resign who were representing UCPN (Maoist Centre) in the KP Oli government. But, those ministers have been trying to stick to the KP Oli government.
