KATHMANDU, Jan 10: Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Shiva Maya Tumbahamphe held a meeting with the chairpersons of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, on Friday.

The meeting comes at a time when the important businesses of the lower house have been stalled due to the indecision of the ruling NCP over who to pick as the new speaker of the House.

It is learnt that Tumbahamphe refused the duo chairman's proposal to resign from her post. Earlier last week, the NCP leadership suggested her stepping down from the post to pave way for electing the new speaker.

Talking to media persons, Tumbahamphe said that she discussed about the resumption of the House session from coming Sunday.

According to Surya Thapa, the press advisor to PM Oli, the two chairpersons held a discussion to decide the party's candidate for the new speaker as soon as the deputy speaker left the Prime Minister's official residence, Baluwatar, for Singha Durbar after holding meeting with the two NCP chairs. With just two days left for the next scheduled meeting of the lower house, the NCP has not yet held ‘serious’ discussions to decide its candidate for new speaker. 

NCP’s failure to select a speaker candidate is holding up some important business in parliament’s ongoing winter session. 

Given the current arithmetic of the political parties represented in the lower house, no other political parties can elect a speaker or deputy speaker without the support of the NCP. But infighting between the two factions of the party – the erstwhile CPN (Maoist Center) and the CPN-UML– over speaker candidate is preventing the house from getting down to regular business. 

Some leaders said the next meeting of the lower house scheduled for Sunday is also likely to be postponed as the two party chairmen are yet to agree on the speaker candidate.

The lower house has failed to hold a single meeting after the start of the winter session on December 20. After the formalities of the first meeting of the parliamentary session, the lower house scheduled its next meeting for December 27. But the meeting was deferred for January 1 through a notice. 

The post of speaker is lying vacant since the resignation of Krishna Bahadur Mahara in early October after he was accused of attempted rape.

 
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