By Our Reporter
The political parties in the present ruling coalition, which is short of two seats to form a majority government has been making every effort to garner a majority.
While trying to form the new government under Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress, the ruling parties have resorted to both ethical and non-ethical measures. The decision of the caretaker government to recommend to the President to issue an ordinance to amend the National Penal Code 2017 is one of the unethical and unconstitutional steps taken to ensure the support of 138 lawmakers in favour of it by releasing Resham Chaudhary, the mastermind behind the Tikpur incident of August 2015 in which seven persons including senior police officers and a child were brutally killed.
The government’s move to issue the ordinance to get the support of three members of Resham Chaudhary’s Nagarik Unmukti Party elected to the House of Representatives shows the ruling alliance is not leaving any stone unturned to form the government under it.
However, the decision backfired as youth Nepali Congress leaders, leaders of other parties, civil society leaders, former Inspector Generals of Nepal Police,
Human Rights organisations, media and general people criticized it.
It was one of the unethical moves taken by the Deuba-led government to retain the post of Prime Minister. It seems Deuba who earned a bad name for introducing bad practices in the multiparty parliamentary system in the mid-1990s has not given up his bad habit. It was Deuba who was responsible for ‘Pajero’,’ Prado’ culture to woo the lawmakers in the erstwhile House.
Now the ruling five parties have 136 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives. Of them, 89 are from the NC, 32 from the Maoist Centre, 10 are from the CPN (Unified Socialist), four from the Loktantantrik Samajwadi Party, and one from the Rastriya Janamorcha. LSP has the other day decided to join the government of the ruling coalition.
When the ruling coalition is short of two seats, its leaders have been regularly consulting with CK Raut of the Janamat Party and Resham Chaudhary of the Rastriya Unmukti Party. From Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal to CPN (Unified Socialist) chair Madhav Nepal and other leaders reached the Dilli Bazarr jail to meet Chaudhary. When Chaudhary put forth a condition to support the ruling coalition only if their demands were met, the government decided to issue the controversial ordinance.
If issued, by the President, the ordinance will pave the way for the release of many criminals doing their service in different jails.
The Deuba-led coalition will have 145 members in total if it was supported by the Janmat Party and Jana Unmukti Party. However, when party general secretary duo Gagan Kumar Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma, vice president Dhan Raj Gurung, leader Shekhar Koirala and youth leader Pradeep Paudel strongly opposed the decision to issue the ordinance, party president Deuba is in a difficult position. Students have already taken to the streets against the issue.
However, while applying every measure to have the magic number of 138, the coalition parties have not yet finalised the name of the Prime Minister. While Deuba, Ram Chandra Paudel and Gagan Kumar Thapa from the NC, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Centre are eying for the post of Prime Minister, the coalition partners have not held any meeting to decide their PM candidate.
While ruling parties are exercising to form the government, KP Sharma Oli, chairman of the CPN-UML, has been applying every tactic to break the coalition. As such, it is still uncertain who will lead the next government even if it was formed by the ruling coalition.
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