Deuba and Singh in parliamentary party leader race

Publish date : 24 February, 2018

KATHMANDU, Feb 24: As Nepali Congress President and the former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is is not willing to give up the position of parliamentary party leader, his main rival faction-led by Ram Chandra Poudel is preparing to pitch Prakashman Singh for the race.

Despite the pressure that Deuba should hand over the leadership to the new leaders, Deuba is in no mood to step back since his has strong command in the 63-member party. His supporters and second-rung leaders favor him to continue the post. Nepali Congress (NC) has 23 lawmakers under the first-past-the-post category and 40 under the proportional representation category.

“Of the total 63, Deuba has support from 39 members,” said a Deuba close source adding, ”Given the comfortable majority, Deuba is in no mood to give up. He has already started consultations to retain his position.”

On the contrary, Poudel faction has maintained that it has 29 lawmakers in its favor, and Poudel is hopeful that he can draw more votes in Singh’s favor due to the increasing rivalries within Deuba faction.

Youth leaders including Gagan Thapa, Chandra Bhandari, Dhanraj Gurung and Pradip Poudel have demanded that the party leadership should be handed to the new generation citing Deuba’s failed leadership which resulted party’s poor performance in recent elections and failure to steer parliamentary affairs in the last five years.

Meanwhile, Singh has already announced that he will contest for the post, declaring himself completely capable and eligible for the post.

Also, party General Secretary Shashank Koirala has said that Deuba should forward his name as the new parliamentary party leader on basis of consensus.

The party has to select the parliamentary party leader before first meeting of the House of Representatives and National Assembly scheduled for March 5. The party has called its first parliamentary party meeting, since the completion of election, for Sunday morning. The party’s PP meeting is expected to decide the date for election of PP leader.