Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on March 19, 2023 exuded confidence that he will comfortably win a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives on March 20.
Mr. Prachanda requires to seek a vote of confidence as two parties in the seven-party alliance — Rastriya Prajatantra Party and CPN-UML — withdrew support to the government. They refused to endorse Prachanda's proposal to back Nepali Congress leader Ramchandra Paudel for the post of president.
Mr. Prachanda comfortably passed the floor test on January 10 with 268 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR), after all parties except the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party and the Rastriya Janamorcha voted in favour of the government.
Talking to reporters after coming out of Parliament building, Prime Minister Prachanda said that he hopes to get all the votes on Monday.
"Last time, I received support from 99 per cent members of the House of Representatives, and I hope, this time I will get one hundred per cent votes,” he said.
Earlier, the Prime Minister told the alliance partners that he would go for a floor test on March 20.
The partners of the 10-party alliance are CPN-Maoist Centre, Nepali Congress, CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal, Janamat Party, Rastriya Jan Morcha, Nagarik Unmukti Party, Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party-Nepal, Nepal Samajwadi Party and Aam Janata Party.
The Nepali Congress, the largest party in the HoR, has decided to vote in favour of Prachanda on Monday and join the government after the vote of confidence is passed.
“Nepali Congress has decided to back the Prachanda-led government during the vote of confidence and our party will join the government once the vote of confidence is passed,” senior leader of the party Prakash Man Singh told PTI.
So far, the Nepali Congress, Rastriya Swotantra Party and CPN-Unified Socialist have announced that they will vote for Prachanda, which is sufficient for the premier to win the vote of confidence.
The combined strength of the parties is 151, which is sufficient as the votes need to win the vote of confidence in the 275-member HoR is 138.
CPN-Maoist Centre secretary Ganesh Shah said the Prachanda-led government will get support from ten political parties, except CPN-UML and Rastriya Prajatantra Party.
The voting will begin at 1 pm on Monday when the Parliament session starts.
Mr. Prachanda, who is holding more than a dozen Cabinet portfolios, plans to expand his Cabinet only after seeking vote of confidence, apparently to avoid a situation where competing interests of alliance partners could make some partners unhappy about the allocation of portfolios.
Alliance partners often compete for more, and plum portfolios, which puts the prime minister in a difficult situation.
The Nepali Congress, CPN-Unified Socialist and other fringe parties are likely to join the government.
Mr. Prachanda told the media persons during a programme in Kathmandu on Friday that the Cabinet expansion will be completed by March 24.
