ITAHARI, Nov 1: As the second Chief Minister (CM) of Province 1 Bhim Acharya resigned after 68 days in office, an alliance of the opposition parties in Province 1 has collected signatures of 49 Provincial Assembly (PA) members to elect CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Rajendra Rai as the next Chief Minister of the Province 1. 

It may be noted that 47 signatures are enough to requisite majority to elect a new chief minister in the 92-member Provincial Assembly of Province 1. 

A total of 49 Province Assembly members of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party and Federal Democratic Forum have submitted their signatures to the Province Chief Somnath Adhikari 'Pyasi' to appoint Rai as chief minister.  Among the signatories are 21 members of Nepali Congress, 14 of CPN (Maoist Center), 10 of CPN (Unified Socialist), three of Janata Samajbadi Party and one member of Federal Democratic Forum. 

Earlier, Province 1 Chief Pyasi had set a deadline until 1:00 pm Tuesday to submit claims to the post of the new Chief Minister following the resignation of Chief Minister Acharya. 

If everything goes as planned, Rajendra Rai is likely to become the new CM of Province no. 1 on Tuesday.  Rai is the Parliamentary Party leader of CPN (Unified Socialist), the third largest party of the five-party coalition. 

Rai was elected Provincial Assembly member from Bhojpur. He changed his allegiance to CPN (Unified Socialist) from CPN-UML after the party was officially registered at the Election Commission on August 25, 2021. The CPN (Unified Socialist) was formed under the leadership of former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal as a breakaway faction of the KP Oli-led UML.

(With Inputs from RSS)

 
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