Kathmandu, Nepal, January 25, 2022: The dissident faction of the ruling head Nepali Congress (NC) has decided to exert pressure to the party leadership and the government to hold local level elections by April 2022 as proposed by the Election Commission (EC).
A meeting of the dissident faction held through the virtual means decided to this effect. With the decision, intra-party dispute would surface within the ruling head Nepali Congress if the Prime Minister Sher Bahhadur Deuba, who is also the party president, prefers to defer local level elections by six months as provisioned by the constitutional and demanded by the some allies of the government.
As two ruling allies- CPN (Maoist Center) and the CPN (United Socialist) have demanded to hold the parliamentary election first by differing the local level elections by six months as per the article 225 of the constitution, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has faced difficulties to declare the date for the local level elections by taking into confidence to all the ruling allies.
Even though the Prime Minister Deuba is also not in favor of differing the local level elections as demanded by the two ruling allies to hold the parliamentary elections first, the dissident faction has concluded that any decision to defer the local level poll based on constitutional or legal loopholes may be counterproductive to the electoral prospect of the party.
During the meeting, the dissident leaders had also expressed exception to the unilateral decision taken by the party president and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to amend election related Act.
