Ruling Nepali Congress to elect parliamentary party leader on Wednesday

The ruling Nepali Congress (NC) Party on Monday announced that it will hold its parliamentary party (PP) leader election on Wednesday, a day before the newly-elected members of the House of Representatives are sworn in.

The three-member election committee comprising Joint General Secretary Bishma Raj Angdembe as coordinator and central members Pushpa Bhusal and Prakash Rasaili 'Snehi' as members were formed in the meeting of the NC Central Working Committee on Sunday to elect the PP leader on December 21.

Besides Prime Minister and party president Sher Bahadur Deuba, general secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa, former General Secretary Dr Shekhar Koirala, and senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel are likely to compete for the post of NC PP leader.

The party has won 89 seats -- 57 in the first past the post-election system and 32 in the proportional representation election system -- in the House of Representatives in the November 20 elections.

The PP leader elected from among the 89 MPs of the party will lead the government if the party decides to form the government.

Meanwhile, the oath-taking ceremony of newly elected members of the House of Representatives (HoR) in the general election will be held on December 22, sources in the parliamentary secretariat said on Monday.

The secretariat has urged all the members-elect to be present in the oath-taking ceremony on Thursday with the certificate of the election and other relevant documents.

The sources in the parliamentary secretariat said the swearing-in ceremony for the new members elected in the lower house will take place at 1 pm on Thursday.

According to Article 88 of the Constitution, every member of the Federal Parliament should take an oath of office and secrecy as provided in the law before taking part for the first time in the meeting of the parliament or its committees.

As per the provision, before the House elects the Speaker, the senior-most (by age) member takes the oath before the President before administering the oath to other members.

Separately, the chairman of the CPN (United Socialist) party, Madhav Kumar Nepal has ruled out the possibility of the formation of a new government by the left parties alone.

Speaking at the felicitation programme for the newly elected parliament members of the party, Nepal said that "even though there are rumours that the left-wing parties will unite to form a government, that is not possible".

Nepal expressed the view that the issue of forming a left-wing government was only a matter of confusing the people.

Stating that there was a telephone conversation between him and CPN-Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" to discuss the issue of government formation, Nepal said that only after the discussion with Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba will the equation of government formation will come to light.

Meanwhile, Maoist supremo 'Prachanda' has said that discussions are underway to form a Left-Democratic Alliance government.

Speaking at a programme organised by Press Centre Nepal -- affiliated to the party -- in Chitwan on Sunday, former prime minister Prachanda said that the alliance's government will be formed by sharing power.

''Consensus will be formed among the alliance members on the president, vice president, prime minister, speaker and vice speaker among other posts. Discussions are underway on power sharing.'' ''We will move ahead by forming a government within the time given by the president,'' he said.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has given political parties seven days to claim to form a new government.

A senior leader of the CPN (Unified Socialist) and former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal has said that a new government will be formed within a week.

The political parties have no alternative but to work together, he pointed out.

Speaking at a programme in Kathmandu on Monday, Khanal said that since the people's vote did not give a clear majority to any party, they have no option than to work together.

The left democratic government is most likely to be formed, pointed out Khanal.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)