BARA, AUGUST 9

Members of the executive of Bara's Nijgadh Municipality have padlocked the offices of the mayor and deputy mayor over a dispute involving the chief administration officer.

Earlier, Federal Affairs and Local Development Ministry had transferred Chief Administration Officer Suman Kumar Karki to Pacharauta Municipality, Bara, as per its July 27 decision. Karki, however, had managed to stay the transfer decision and returned to assume his duty in Nijgadh Municipality again.

But, as Mayor Surath Puri refused to allow Karki to sign his attendance, a majority of the executive members, in protest of the mayor's decision, padlocked the offices of the mayor and deputy mayor Sommaya Thing yesterday.

Speaking about their decision to padlock ward No 13, Nijgadh Municipality, ward Chair Surya Ghalan said they were forced to padlock the offices as the mayor refused to address their concern.

'We had submitted memorandums to the mayor regarding our demand that the chief administrative officer be allowed to sign the attendance log, but to no avail,'

Ghalan explained, adding regular services at the local level had been affected due to lack of a chief administration officer. Regarding the dispute, Mayor Puri informed that the municipality had written to the ministry concerned about its inability to accept the already-transferred employee.

Led by Nijgadh Municipality ward Chair Ghalan, executive members Bisan Sapkota, Sworna Lama, Gyan Bahadur Gole, Sahaiya Guro, Ramchandra Katwal and others were present when the offices were padlocked.

Of the 13 wards in Nijgadh, five wards were won by CPN- UML during the recent local level elections. Similarly, UML also won the posts of mayor and deputy mayor.

It's worth noting that the CAO was transferred four times earlier too, but on each of those occasions he had managed to stay the four previous transfer decisions.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 10, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.