KATHMANDU, APRIL 8
Four CPN-Maoist Centre lawmakers – Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Lekhraj Bhatta, Prabhu Sah, and Gauri Shankar Chaudhary - who had defected from the CPN-MC to the ruling CPN-UML today lost their House of Representatives seats. All four are Cabinet ministers in the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli-led government.
They had thrown their weight behind Oli during the factional feud in the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which was formed with the unification of CPN-MC and UML. The unification of the two parties was later nullified by a Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota today informed the HoR that the four lawmakers had been expelled from the House as their mother party, the CPN-MC, had asked the Parliament Secretariat to take action against them for defecting to the UML.
The CPN-MC parliamentary party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal had complained to the Parliament Secretariat that the four lawmakers had defected from the party and should lose their seats in the Lower House of the Parliament, as per the prevailing laws.
Dahal had written to the secretary general of the Parliament on April 6 seeking action against Rayamajhi, Bhatta, Sah, and Chaudhary as per sections 31 and 32 (1) (b) of the Political Party Act-2017.
Rayamajhi is minister of energy, water resources, and irrigation; Bhatta is minister of industry, commerce, and supplies; Sah is urban development minister, and Chaudhary is minister of labour, employment, and social security.
Bhatta and Rayamajhi had said that they would not return to CPN-MC even if they lost their HoR seats.
The EC is required to hold byelection for any HoR seat that falls vacant if more than six months of the HoR's tenure remain, said EC Spokesperson Raj Kumar Shrestha.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 9, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
