Kathmandu, Jan 21: The ruling alliance’s candidate Indira Rana has been elected as the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives on Saturday as per the power-sharing agreement among the ruling parties.
Rana, who is from the Rastriya Swatantra Party led by combative journalist-turned-deputy prime minister and home minister Rabi Lamichhane, was elected to the post with majority votes cast by the MPs present during the voting at the lower house meeting on Saturday.
A total of 166 MPs in the 275-strong HoR voted in favour of the proposal seeking election of Rana to the post of deputy speaker. Meanwhile, 97 MPs voted against the proposal.
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A total of 264 votes were cast while one MP abstained from voting.
House of Representatives Speaker Devraj Ghimire announced the voting results and declared MP Rana elected to the post of deputy speaker with majority votes.
The proposal to elect MP Rana as the deputy speaker was proposed by Sobita Gautam of Rastriya Swatantra Party, while it was seconded by Krishna Gopal Shrestha of the CPN-UML, Narayani Sharma of the CPN (Maoist Center) and Rajendra Lingden of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP).
Meanwhile, the opposition parties had proposed Mukta Kumari Yadav of Nepali Congress as their common candidate for the post of deputy speaker.
However, the proposal was not put for vote after Rana secured the required majority votes to be elected the deputy speaker.
Nepali Congress Joint General Secretary Badri Prasad Pandey had proposed Yadav for the post of deputy speaker and was seconded by CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Metmani Chaudhary and Loktantrik Samajbadi Party’s Sarbendranath Shukla.
Earlier, Ram Prakash Chaudhary of Loktantrik Samajwadi Party, Gangaram Chaudhary of Nagarik Unmukti Party, Prem Suwal of Nepal Workers and Peasants Party, Chitra Bahadur KC of Rastriya Janamorcha, and independent MPs Amresh Kumar Singh, Prabhu Sah and Yogendra Mandal had expressed their views in the parliament.
The next meeting of the House of Representatives is scheduled for 1:00 pm on Tuesday.
