KATHMANDU: CPN-UML has sought lawmaker Rajya Laxmi Golchha's resignation from the Parliament on disciplinary grounds as she did not attend the House meeting to cast vote for the party chairman, KP Sharma Oli, in the prime ministerial election.

According to Krishna Gopal Shrestha, secretary of the party’s central secretariat, a meeting of the party's Standing Committee today decided to ask Golchha to give up the membership of Parliament because she did not vote the party's prime ministerial candidate in the election on October 11.

If she did not put in paper, Shrestha said, the party would do the needful to remove her from the Parliament.

Golchha, who belongs to a business family from Biratnagar, was nominated to the Parliament under the proportional representation system by the party as a Madhesi woman, creating dissatisfaction among the CPN-UML cadres and leaders.

Golchha’s nomination had left the long-time CPN-UML leader, since her student days, Ram Kumari Jhakri out of the Constituent Assembly.

The party leadership was criticised for her nomination which, the party cadres claimed, was solely guided by the donations that she made.

Interestingly, her name featured in the proportional representation list of Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal also during the Constituent Assembly elections in November 2013.

But initially, when CPN-UML included Golchha in its PR list, she was reluctant to become a lawmaker and had even written to the Morang District Election Office to inform about her intent.

It is said she ‘agreed’ to CPN-UML proposal only after a long-drawn bargaining. The CPN-UML is said to have ‘repaid’ her with the CA membership for her help during the elections, including giving some UML leaders money and arranging choppers.

Golchha has not been attending the House meetings for long.