KATHMANDU, May 5: Opposition parties in parliament have forged an electoral alliance for the National Assembly election scheduled for May 20.
The main opposition party, Nepali Congress (NC), CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajbadi Party(JSP) and the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led faction of the CPN-UML have decided to field candidacy of Dr Khim Lal Devkota for the a post of a lawmaker lying vacant under Bagmati Province.
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The post fell vacant after the CPN (Maoist Center) relieved incumbent Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa from his position as a lawmaker following his decision to quit the party to join Prime Minister KP Oli-led CPN-UML.
The opposition parties have maintained that they made the decision to field candidacy of Dr Devkota after concluding that it is good to take an independent expert to the upper house of the federal parliament. Dr Devkota, who is considered close to Madhav Kumar Nepal, is a renowned expert on federalism and local governance in Nepal.
The ruling UML has already announced fielding the candidacy of Home Minister Thapa for the post. With the decision of the opposition alliance on Wednesday, two candidates belonging to the UML are contesting for single post of National Assembly lawmaker.
