DHANGADHI: The Sudurpaschim Province Assembly has elected CPN-Maoist Center leader Bhim Bahadur Bhandari as its Speaker.
The assembly which failed to elect the Speaker earlier has elected Speaker in its third attempt on Tuesday morning.
In the 53-member assembly, Bhandari garnered 28 votes for his support. 23 lawmakers cast vote against him on Tuesday.
Earlier, 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. But Saturday’s attempt was also unsuccessful after 7 MPs of the Nagarik Unmukti Party remained neutral.
Maoist Center lawmaker Bhandari filed candidacy for the post of Speaker from the ruling coalition. Similarly, Nepali Congress 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 had to 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 in the election held 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.
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