KATHMANDU, June 10: Chief Minister of Gandaki Province, Prithvi Subba Gurung, has failed to win a vote of confidence from the province assembly.
Of the total 61 members of the Gandaki Province Assembly (including Speaker), 27 voted in favor of the motion while 30 others did not express their confidence in CM Gurung.
Similarly, 1 member of the assembly chose to stay neutral during the voting.
Gandaki CM Gurung to seek trust vote on Thursday
With this, Gurung has been automatically relieved from his position as the chief minister as per Article 169 (1) of the constitution.
Gurung had first been appointed as Gandaki CM after the left alliance comprising CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) recorded landslide victory in 2017 elections.
He was, however, reappointed as the chief minister on May 12 in his capacity as the parliamentary party leader of the largest political party in the provincial assembly after the coalition partner--- Maoist Center--- withdrew its support to the Gurung-led government.
Gurung is required to test his fate as the executive head of the province through the confidence motion within 30 days of the date of appointment.
Earlier, Gurung had stepped down from his position in a tactical way just a day before the province assembly was all set to vote on a no-confidence motion registered against him. The opposition parties including the Nepali Congress (NC), the Maoist Center, Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and Rastriya Janamorcha (RJM) had proposed NC’s parliamentary party leader Krishna Chandra Nepali Pokharel as the new chief minister in their no-confidence motion against Chief Minister Gurung.
