Nepal govt for Upper House poll on Feb 8

The Nepal Cabinet has proposed February 8 as the date for conducting polls to the Upper House of Parliament to pave the way for formation of the new government after recent provincial and parliamentary polls.

A Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba yesterday took the decision on the poll date.

Deuba had proposed February 8 as the date for the Upper House election, during a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav.

Yadav expressed his readiness to conduct the election for the Upper House on that date.

Out of 59 members of the National Assembly, 56 will be elected by an electoral college comprising the chiefs and deputy chiefs of the 753 local units and members of the provincial assemblies. The remaining three will be nominated by the president on the recommendation of the government.
 

The EC has been maintaining that it could not allocate the seats under proportionate representation for the Lower House before conducting the election to the Upper House.

It is necessary to conduct the election to the Upper House to allocate seats for women and ethnic minorities, including Dalits, Yadav said.

The election of the new prime minister can take place only after the formation of the full house, which includes the House of Representatives and the Upper House, as per the constitutional provision.

However, the victorious Left alliance, comprising CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre, has been demanding Deuba quit the top post at the earliest so as to pave way for election of the prime minister.

Deuba, has, however, maintained that he would not resign before the Upper House election takes place.

The president last week endorsed the ordinance related to the election of the Upper House that paves the way for the election of the prime minister.

CPN-UML chairman and former premier K P Oli is likely to be again elected to the top executive post with the support of CPN-Maoist Centre as the Left Alliance secured 174 seats in the 275-member Parliament.

The Left alliance won 116 seats out of a total 165 under the first-past-the-post system while Deuba's Nepali Congress bagged just 23 seats in the country's recently-concluded historic polls that many hope will bring much-needed political stability to the Himalayan nation.