Kathmandu, March 3 

One-third members of the 59-member National Assembly, the Upper House of the Parliament, completed their two-year tenure.

As per the constitutional provision, tenure of one-third NA members expire in two years, another one-third in four years, and the final one-third in six years. The provision stipulates that a draw shall be conducted for the first time to fix the tenure of the NA members.

Nineteen NA members had picked the draw of two-year tenure, 20 had picked tenure of four years, and the remaining 20 had picked for six years. The 19 NA members who had picked the draw for two-year tenure retired today.

The 19 NA lawmakers are Kamala Kumari Oli, Kali Bahadur Malla, Khemraj Nepali, Dhana Kumari Khatiwada, Balaram Prasad Baskota, Meena Budha, Mukti Kumari Yadav, Utol Tamang, Ramesh Prasad Yadav, Raj Kumar Kunwar, Binda Devi Ale Magar, Sarita Prasain, Haricharan Siwakoti, Surendra Raj Pandey, Brishesh Chandra Lal, Yubaraj Khatiwada, Ramprit Paswan, Jivan Budha and Sher Bahadur Kunwar.

Of the total 19 members retiring today, eight are from the ruling Nepal Communist Party, seven from the main opposition Nepali Congress, two from Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal, one from Socialist Party-Nepal, and one was nominated by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on the recommendation of the government.

Election for 18 NA members has already been completed and they are scheduled to take oath of office and secrecy tomorrow. The government is yet to decide who to recommend to the NA to replace Khatiwada, who had earlier been nominated by the president.

Although the NCP Secretariat has decided to recommend Bam Dev Gautam to the NA, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has rejected the decision and is in favour of recommending Khatiwada again to the NA.

After his term as NA member expired today, Khatiwada tendered his resignation as the finance minister. Khatiwada is likely to be reappointed as finance minister. If he is reappointed, he has to take oath of office and secrecy again with membership of one of the two Houses of the Parliament within six months. It is now up to the prime minister who to recommend among Khatiwada and Gautam to the NA.

All the outgoing NA members delivered their farewell speech in today’s NA meeting, but Khatiwada did not even though he was present at the meeting. This has given rise to speculations that the prime minister will recommend Khatiwada to the NA again.