As per rule, Tumbahamphe’s resignation should be addressed to the speaker, and the speaker should read it out to the House. But since there’s no speaker and Tumbahamphe cannot chair the HoR meeting after resigning, the seniormost lawmaker will chair the meeting and read her resignation out to the House. So the NCP has not lost the speaker’s post yet

— Senior NCP Leader

Kathmandu, October 2

The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) might keep the post of speaker of the House of Representatives with itself, asking Deputy Speaker Shiva Maya Tumbahamphe to resign.

As per constitutional provision, Tumbahamphe’s resignation is a must for the NCP to contest the post of speaker after it fell vacant following the resignation of rape-accused Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

The constitution’s Article 91 (2) states that the election shall be so held that there is one woman out of the speaker and the deputy speaker, and they shall be representatives from different parties.

There are arguments that since the deputy speaker should tender her resignation to the speaker as per the rule, and since the speaker’s post has already fallen vacant, the NCP must give up its claim to the speaker’s post as there’s no one for the deputy speaker to tender her resignation to.

However, the NCP seems in no mood to give away the speaker’s post to any other party although it has surely lost one of the two posts.

A senior NCP leader dismissed the argument that Tumbahamphe could not resign. The leader said although Tumbahamphe’s resignation should be addressed to the speaker, the latter’s absence would not make any difference.

“As per the rule, Tumbahamphe’s resignation should be addressed to the speaker and the speaker should read it out to the House. But since there’s no speaker and Tumbahamphe cannot chair the HoR meeting after resigning, the senior-most lawmaker will chair the meeting and read her resignation out to the House. As simple as that,” said the senior NCP leader. “So it’s clear the NCP has not lost the speaker’s post.”

When asked whether the party would ask Tumbahamphe to resign, the senior NCP leader just said his party believed in running the Parliament on the basis of broad understanding between represented parties.

So far, the NCP had kept both the posts with itself, arguing that Mahara and Tumbahamphe belonged to different parties at the time of their election. Mahara belonged to the then CPN-MC and Tumbahamphe to CPN- UML, but both the parties have now merged to become the NCP.

Meanwhile, both the ruling NCP and main opposition Nepali Congress have yet to decide as to how to go about election for the HoR speaker. There’s no ongoing Parliament session now as the budget session of the Parliament has just ended and there’s some time for the winter session to begin, but a special Parliament session can be called before the schedule by one-fourth of the lawmakers.

NC Whip Pushpa Bhusal said since an extraordinary and unpleasant incident had just occurred, a meeting of the NC parliamentary party would soon decide how to go about with the speaker’s election. When asked whether the NC, with the help of other opposition parties, would call a special Parliament session, Bhusal said the NC parliamentary party would decide on the matter.

The senior NCP lawmaker said since they just addressed an unfortunate situation, the speaker’s election would be carried out following due process in line with the constitutional provisions.