Kathmandu, April 5

Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel today filed their nominations for the election of parliamentary party leader.

The election for parliamentary party leader will begin from 11:00am tomorrow at the Parliamentary Party Office in Singha Durbar.

NC has altogether 207 lawmakers with yesterday’s Central Working Committee meeting endorsing independent lawmaker Atahar Kamal Musalman’s request to join the NC parliamentary party.

The position of parliamentary party leader of the main opposition and the largest party in Parliament had been lying vacant since the demise of the then party president and PP leader Sushil Koirala on February 9.

Lawmaker Farmullah Mansur proposed Deuba as candidate and Padma Narayan Chaudhary, who was in the Paudel-led camp till the party’s convention in March, seconded it.

Prakash Man Singh proposed Paudel for the post and newly elected General Secretary Shashank Koirala seconded Singh’s proposal.

Paudel was defeated by Deuba in the party presidential election held during the 13th National General Convention in early March.

Meanwhile, the election committee will hold elections for other positions of the PP working committee on Friday.

Both Deuba and Paudel commented that their candidacies would unify the party and strengthen democracy. Paudel further said he wished Deuba took the initiative to distribute power among leaders of the party.

Jeevan Pariyar said he was confident that Paudel would win the election because the establishment faction had 16 votes more than Deuba during the last election.

Lawmaker Bhimsen Das Pradhan, who is in the camp led by former general secretary Krishna Prasad Sitaula, said that his camp with the participation of more than 25 lawmakers, had decided to vote for Deuba.

Vote through Electronic Voting Machine

KATHMANDU: The Election Committee is using Electronic Voting Machine to hold the election of PP leader and also the executive committee.

Member of the election committee Gururaj Ghimire said lawmakers have already been instructed on the use of EVM in which the names of candidates will be placed in alphabetical order.

Ghimire said result of the voting would be published as soon as voting concludes.