Kathmandu, Nepal, January 4, 2022: The ruling coalition partners have agreed to share 19 vacant seats of the National Assembly. A meeting of the ruling allies held at Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s official resident, Baluwatar, Kathmandu on Monday, decided to jointly contest in the upcoming election to the members by sharing the posts among the ruling allies.
As per the decision of the meeting, the ruling head Nepali Congress will get six seats while CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist) will share five seats each. Similarly, two seats are allocated to the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and one to the Rastriya Janamorcha.
Of the total three seats to be vacant in Province 1, one each is divided among the Nepali Congress, CPN (United Socialist) and the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP). A seat under the male cluster has been given to the Nepali Congress, a seat under the women cluster has been given to the CPN (Unified Socialist) and a seat under the minority cluster has been given to the Janata Samajwadi Party.
In Province 2, a seat under the women cluster has been given to CPN (Maoist Center) and another one seat under the other cluster has been given to JSP. In Bagmati Province, a seat under the other cluster has been given to Nepali Congress while another one seat under the women cluster has been given to CPN (Unified Socialist).
Similarly, in Gandaki Province, a seat under the women cluster has been given to Nepali Congress while another two seats under the other and Dalit clusters have been given to the CPN (Maoist Center). In Lumbini Province, a seat under open cluster has been given to Nepali Congress while another seat under the woman cluster has been given to the CPN (Unified Socialist), and another seat under the Dalit cluster has been given to the Rastriya Janamorcha.
Similarly, in Karnali Province, a seat under women cluster has been given to the Nepali Congress, a seat under the disabled cluster to the CPN (Maoist Center), and another one seat under the open cluster has been given to the CPN (Unified Socialist). In Sudurpaschim Province, a seat under the open cluster has been given to Nepali Congress, another seat under the Dalit cluster to the CPN (Maoist Center) and another one seat under women cluster has been given to the CPN (Unified Socialist).
NC and CPN (United Socialist) finals candidates
Nepali Congress has finalized the names of candidates for the upcoming National Assembly elections scheduled to be held on January 26 and nomination on Tuesday. A meeting of the Central Working Committee of the party decided to pick its six candidates from six provinces.
According to the party decision, Gopal Kumar Basnet has been picked for Province 1, Krishna Prasad Poudel for Bagmati Province, Kamala Panta for Gandaki Province, Durga Kumari for Karnali Province, Yuvraj Sharma for Lumbini Province and Narayan Mishra for Sudurpaschim Province.
Likewise, the CPN (United Socialist) has picked Jayanti Rai, Goma Timilsena, Rajya Laxmi Gaire and Madan Kumari Shah from Province 1, Bagmati Province, Lumbini Province and Sudurpaschim province respectively under the women cluster while Udaya Bohora from Karnali under open cluster from Karnali Province.
Other ruling allies have yet to fix the candidates for the upper House. It is said that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) has entrusted its newly reelected chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal to pick the candidates.
The electoral alliance among the ruling allies would reduce the main opposition party CPN (UML) into 15 seats. The UML has now 24 seats. The UML would lose 8 seats from the upcoming elections for the National Assembly.
The UML has already picked Guru Baral, Sumitra Bhandari and Sonam Gyalgen Sherpa from Province 1, Asarfi Yadav and Bina Shah from Province 2, Gopal Shakya and Nirkumari Kunwar Darlami from Bagmati province, Punya Prasad Poudel, Lila Pokhrel Thanet and Arjun Sunam from Gandaki Province, Ram Dayal Gupta, Bharati Khanal and Krishna Bahadur Sunar from Lumbini Province, Chudamani Sharma, Ganga Thapa Mahat and Padam Bahadur Maji from Karnali Province and Dilliraj Bhatta, Santosh Kumari Sharma and Naresh Bishwakarma from Sudurpaschim province.
