By Our Commentator
The two-thirds majority government formed by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in February 2018 has collapsed after it failed to garner the vote of confidence in the parliament on Monday.
The House of Representatives (HoR) rejected his proposal of the vote of confidence with a big margin.
Of the 232 lawmakers present in the special session of the House on Monday, Oli received only 93 votes, which is only a little more than the one-third of the total strength of the 275-member powerful House, which has now 271 members, after the expulsion of four members elected from the Maoist Centre.
In the voting 124 lawmakers cast vote against Oli while 15 stayed neutral and 34 remained absent. Of the absentees, 28 were from the ruling CPN-UML.
After losing the vote of confidence, PM Oli has been relieved of his position.
Oli needed 136 votes to remain in the post as the HoR currently has only 271 members, but he was short of 43 votes.
Although the ruling CPN-UML party has 121 members in the House, 28 members close to senior leaders Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal did not attend the Special Session.
Nepali Congress has 61 members and the Maoist Centre having 49 members voted against Prime Minister Oli.
However, lawmakers of the Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal got divided as 15 of its 32 members remained neutral and others voted against the Prime Minister.
After Oli failed to seek a vote of confidence, President Bidya Devi Bhandari has called for the parties to form a coalition government asking them to submit the name of the leader who could produce a majority in the House.
However, as India has reportedly thrown its strength by sending RAW officials to Kathmandu to form another government also under the leadership of Oli, forming an alternative government looks impossible because Mahantha Thakur-led Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal could act under Indian instruction and Thakur has already made it easy for the formation of a government under Oli by stating that it would not engage in the government forming process.
If all goes as planned by Oli, the Nepali people will soon be having a ‘made in India’ government under the so-called nationalist leader KP Sharma Oli.
Indian interference in Nepal becomes apparent again
At a time when political parties in Nepal have been exercising to form a new government after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli lost the trust of the parliament, leaders of the Indian ruling party BJP have openly started lobbying for forming a new government under Oli.
On Tuesday, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted that Oli was India’s choice.
The statement of a powerful leader of Bharatiya Janata Party and Rajya Sabha member had made many things clear.
First of all, Oli had decided to seek a vote of confidence in a dramatic move because he was assured Indian backing.
Secondly, Mahantha Thakur of Janata Samajwadi Party has announced that he would not support forming an alternative government, which means he wanted to make it easier for Oli to become PM again. And Thakur is a true agent of India in Nepal as suggested by various evidence.
Thirdly and most importantly, it has exposed the true colour of Oli who became PM in 2018 by delivering pro-nationalist speeches during and before the general elections.
And the circumstances suggest that Oli decided to seek a vote of confidence though he knew well that he would lose it because of the Indian backing.
Prime Minister Oli had failed to garner the vote of confidence in the parliament on Monday as the House of Representatives (HoR) rejected his proposal of the vote of confidence.
Of the 232 lawmakers present in the special session of the House on Monday, only 93 voted in favour of the proposal of the Prime Minister while 124 voted against him and 15 lawmakers stayed neutral.
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