KATHMANDU, Jan 5: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who is planning to take the vote of confidence in parliament on January 10, has intensified negotiations with other parties to secure the required majority votes in the 275-member parliament. 

Prime Minister Dahal on Wednesday held a meeting with CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal to solicit his support in the vote of confidence motion in parliament. The Nepal-led party has a total 10 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR).

During the meeting held at the Maoist Center's Parliamentary Party (PP) office in Singha Durbar, Prime Minister Dahal had proposed to work together in the new government. According to Dahal's Personal Secretary Ramesh Malla, Prime Minister Dahal had repeated his request to cast votes in his favor during the confidence motion. 

However, Chairman Nepal did not give any words to Prime Minister Dahal about his party's support to the new government. Sources said Unified Socialist is still weighing on the situation and will take a decision whether to support PM Dahal on January 10 itself. 

Dahal was appointed as the new prime minister with the support of 169 parliamentarians including UML, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), Janta Samajwadi Party (JSP), Janamat Party,  Nagarik Unmukti Party and three independent lawmakers, in line with Article 76(2) of the Constitution of Nepal. As per the existing constitutional provision, a prime minister appointed under Article 76(2) needs to secure a vote of confidence from the parliament within 30 days of the appointment. 

As of Wednesday, there is no certainty whether the RPP and JSP will support Dahal during the trust vote in parliament on January 10. While JSP has said that it will join the government only if the party is given a dignified position in the government, RPP has also announced to support the Dahal-led government only after seeing the government's Common Minimum Program (CMP). 

While the UML has a total 79 members including one independent lawmaker joining the party, the Maoist Center has 32 members in the parliament. Similarly, RSP-led by Rabi Lamichhane has 20 seats and Janamat Party-led by CK Raut has six members.  This will bring a total 137 members to Dahal during the trust vote.

Although two independent lawmakers are set to support Dahal during the vote of confidence to secure 138 votes, Prime Minister Dahal wants to make sure that he has a comfortable majority in parliament so that his government will not be in jeopardy any time soon. 

As such, Prime Minister Dahal has been simultaneously holding talks with JSP, which has 12 members and RPP, which has 14 members in parliament. Nagarik Unmukti Party, which has four members in HoR, has threatened to not support Dahal if Resham Chaudhary, who is an advisor to the party, is not released from jail. 

Sources said Prime Minister Dahal has planned to appoint five deputy prime ministers (DPMs) in his cabinet to bring JSP and RPP onboard the government. While there are already three deputy prime ministers in his cabinet, Prime Minister Dahal plans to appoint two more DPMs to secure support of RPP and JSP.

Keeping in view of the position of RPP and other parties that they will take a decision whether to support the government only after seeing the Common Minimum Program (CMP) of the government, Prime Minister Dahal held a meeting with the top leaders of UML and RSP to finalize the CMP at the earliest possible date.  

According to Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane, the coalition partners have decided to finalize the CMP by Thursday. Top leaders of the ruling parties had held discussions in detail about the contents to be incorporated in the document. "We also held discussions on the latest political development and works of the government," said Lamichhane after the meeting of ruling parties held at the prime minister’s official residence in Baluwatar on Wednesday evening.

 
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