DHANGADHI: The Sudurpaschim Province Assembly has failed to elect its speaker in its second attempt on Saturday evening.

The Province Assembly, which could not elect the Speaker on 11 January, had  called the lawmakers to take part in the election procedure scheduled for 6 pm Saturday.

After 7 MPs of the Nagarik Unmukti Party remained neutral, both of the candidates from the ruling coalition and the Nepali Congress failed to prove their majority.

CPN-Maoist Center lawmaker Bhim Bahadur Bhandari has filed candidacy for the post of Speaker from the ruling coalition. Similarly, Nepali Congress has put forward lawmaker Man Bahadur Rawal as the candidate for the Speaker. No candidate reached the mandatory 51 percent vote in the election held twice.

Both Bhandari and Rawal got a total of 22 votes each on Saturday. At least 27 votes must be obtained to get elected to the post of the Speaker in the 53-member province assembly.

Earlier, ruling coalition candidate Bhandari had got 27 votes and NC candidate Rawal had got 23 votes on Thursday.

The Sudurpaschim Province Assembly comprises 11 members from the Maoist Center, 10 from theCPN- UML, 7 from the Nagarik Unmukti Party and one from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party.

The largest party in the Province assembly, NC, has 19 members. CPN-Unified has got four members in the province assembly. There is one independent lawmaker in this province.