According to parliament secretariat sources, the House meeting on Monday will be postponed by pasting a notice to inform the lawmakers. [break]
Sixteen rounds of voting have already been conducted to pick a new prime minister, but to no avail. The House had once deferred a scheduled voting due to the demise of sitting Maoist lawmaker Ram Kumari Yadav.
In the seven-party meeting held at Singha Durbar on Monday, none of the three major political parties -- Unified CPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML -- demanded another round of fruitless voting, and they are not likely to insist on holding a vote during the three-party meeting on Monday.
But the parties have interpreted the SC verdict to suit their own interests.
In the Monday meeting, Nepali Congress (NC) argued that Speaker Subas Nembang should declare the party´s candidate Ram Chandra Poudel as prime minister by virtue of him being the sole candidate in the prime ministerial race.
"This is very simple. The SC has already passed its verdict; the speaker should declare the sole candidate as the prime minister," said Poudel who participated the seven-party meeting.
The Maoists also argued against holding another round of voting, but demanded that the parties amend the existing parliamentary regulations to end the ongoing process and begin it anew. "We should focus on amending the parliamentary regulations to abort the current process," said Maoist chief whip Posta Bahadur Bogati.
The UML stated that the party is not for holding meaningless meetings. "We will not hold such meaningless, fruitless voting any longer," said UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal, adding that the parties would discuss the issue on Monday and come up with a solution.
Khanal stated that the SC in its verdict has given three options to the parliament -- Declare Poduel as the prime minister, abort the current process or follow any other acceptable way agreeable to all the parties.
The UML has stood in favor of ending the current process and to begin it anew through an amendment to the parliamentary regulations.
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