CC chair to be elected today

KATHMANDU: Narayan Kaji Shrestha of the Unified CPN-Maoist and Nilambar Acharya of the Nepali Congress today filed their candidacy for the chairman of the Constitutional Committee. The election is taking place tomorrow morning.

Acharya is a common candidate of the 22 ruling parties while Shrestha is likely to get the support Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and few fringe parties. Earlier, the Maoists had put forth the name of Dr Baburam Bhattarai for the post but they changed it at the last minute.

After the nomination, Shrestha said he should get the post as the candidate of the largest party in the Constituent Assembly while Acharya expressed happiness to have been the common candidate of the 22 parties.

A meeting of the 22 parties held at Singha Durbar suggested that NC field Acharya.

The post has fallen vacant since CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal was elected PM on May 24.

The election slated to be held two weeks back was deferred to give way to a consensus in the matter.

Constitution writing process has been hampered due to the vacancy in the crucial post for three months. Several rounds of talks among the big three parties— UML, Maoist and NC— have failed to pick a consensus candidate.