BIRATNAGAR: CPN-UML province 1 parliamentary party leader Hikmat Karki has submitted claims to the provincial chief to make him the chief minister.

Karki, who is backed with the support of CPN-Maoist Center, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) lawmakers, submitted his claim before the province chief Parshuram Khapung a while ago.

The deadline given to claim the chief ministerial post of the Province 1 government is ending at 5 pm today.

Karki UML, who was elected to the province assembly from Jhapa 5 (1), is a standing committee member. He became the Minister of Internal Affairs and Law in the previous province assembly.

The provincial chief had given a week’s time to claim the position of Chief Minister in accordance with sub-section 2 of Article 168 of the Constitution.

There is a comfortable majority in the province when the UML and Maoists are in alliance.

Province 1, which has 93 members in the province assembly, needs the claim with the support of 47 lawmakers to claim for the post of chief minister. UML has 40 seats and Maoist has 13 seats. Adding other coalition partner’s seat, 6 seats of RPP and 1 seat of JSP, the number of lawmakers supporting Karki becomes 60.

Nepali Congress has 29 lawmakers and the CPN- Unified Socialist has four lawmakers in Province 1 assembly.