KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said he wanted to ask UML Deputy parliamentary party (PP) deputy leader and Speaker of Constituent Assembly Subash Nembang why Article 76 (5) was incorporated into the constitution, but he left early without hearing him.

Speaking at a meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR) Friday, Prime Minister Deuba noted that even leader of the opposition party was not present at the HoR.

“I wanted to ask former Speaker Nembang why they had put Article 76 (5) in the constitution. He was speaker of the Constituent Assembly when the constitution was drafted. But he left early,” PM Deuba said. He added he remembered former Speaker Nembang saying that the parliament would never be dissolved. Instead of giving clarification, Deuba said the former Speaker accused his party of issuing whip.

He clarified that the Nepali Congress (NC) did not interfered in the UML. “All the NC did was to request other parties to support the reinstatement of HoR. Aren’t we allowed to even make requests in parliamentary practice?” Deuba said.

Meanwhile, Deuba thanked the lawmakers for congratulating him and said vaccination was his priority. He added, “We fulfill our commitment to vaccinate the people by buying, no matter how expensive it is.”

Stating that though his tenure as the prime minister would be only about 1.5 years, he said that he wanted to do some visible work with the help of all other political leaders in this period as well.