Kathmandu: A day after the Nepali prime minister ditched the alliance with the Nepali Congress, the latter decided to withdraw its support to Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government on Tuesday.
The Nepali PM will have to face the vote of confidence within 30 days.
Commencing a Central Working Committee meeting, the Nepali Congress, the largest party in the lower house- House of Representatives, in terms of seats decided to retract support to the Dahal-led government.
“It has been decided to withdraw the support and the vote of confidence, which we had earlier extended to the incumbent government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal-Prachanda. Nepali Congress will now work as active opposition,” Dhanraj Gurung, the vice-president of the party told ANI.
With this move, the Prime Minister is mandated to seek a vote of confidence within the next 30 days. Prime Minister Dahal’s unexpected decision to revive a coalition with the CPN-UML on Sunday evening had caught the largest coalition partner, NC, off guard.
The newly formed ruling coalition now includes the CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Center, Rastriya Swatantra Party, and Janata Samajwadi Party. There was no immediate comment from the new ruling alliance about the constitutionally mandated vote of confidence as the leaders have been busy dwelling on splitting the ministerial portfolios.
As of now, the CPN-Maoist Center has 32, CPN-UML has 78, the Rashtriya Swatantra Party has 20, and the Janata Samajbadi Party has 12 seats in the parliament. They would need to cross the majority of 138 votes, which as of now is set to be crossed comfortably as the alliance has 142 votes in their favour.
Prime Minister Dahal who has expanded and reshuffled his cabinet at least 12 times since he last came to power in December 2022 forged a coalition with CPN-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML).
Soon after securing a staggering 99 per cent in the first round of vote of confidence on 10 January 2023, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal in March 2023 dumped CPN- UML and allied with Nepali Congress to remain in power.
Crossing a year mark, Dahal returned to his former ally breaking the alliance with the Nepali Congress. The new coalition of four parties who signed an 8-point deal late on Monday night is working on dividing the ministerial portfolios.
Though a new coalition comprising four parties has been formed in the preliminary round of government formation, talks with other parties present in the parliament are underway. The hung parliament and excessively overcrowded ministerial enthusiasts from the coalition partners have proven to be Hercules’ task of forming a 25-member cabinet as he is still struggling to complete his council of ministers.
In addition, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has kept all ministerial portfolios within himself as the division of portfolios is yet to be made. Despite the persisting division about the allocation of portfolios Dahal on Monday inducted three ministers without portfolios which comprised each minister from CPN-UML, Maoist Center and Rastriya Swatantra Party.
