Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' has secured a vote of confidence on Wednesday.
This is the third time Prachanda took the vote of confidence in 15 months after being elected as the Prime Minister of Nepal on December 25, 2022.
Prime Minister Prachanda secured 157 votes out of 268 members of parliament (MPs) who were present in the meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR) today.
Of the remaining MPs, 110 cast votes against Prime Minister Prachanda while one MP remained neutral. Of the 275-member HoR, NC’s Take Bahadur Gurung and UML’s Top Bahaur Rayamajhi have been suspended. UML leader Subas Nembang passed away while Basanta Nembang is undergoing treatment. UML’s Devraj Ghimire is the speaker who is not allowed to vote and Janamat Party’s Sonu Murmu and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP)'s Gita Basnet abstained from voting.
One hundred and thirty-eight votes are required for the vote of confidence in the 275-member House of Representatives.
CPN (UML-78), CPN (Maoist Center-32), Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP-21) Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP-12), and CPN (Unified Socialist-10) cast votes of confidence for Prachanda. Prime Minister took the vote of confidence after Nepali Congress withdrew its support to him on March 5 following the formation of the new ruling coalition including UML the other day.
Similarly, Prachanda took the vote of confidence on March 20, 2023 for the second time after UML, RSP, and RPP withdrew support to the Prachanda-led government during the presidential election. A new ruling coalition including NC was formed. He got 172 votes in the voting in the House of Representatives that day. Eighty-nine votes were cast against him at that time.
He had secured the 268 votes on January 10, 2023 when he took the vote of confidence for the first time after being elected as the Prime Minister of Nepal on December 25, 2022. He had become the Prime Minister with the support of UML, RSP, RPP, JSP, Janamat Party, NUP) among others durnig the period.
At that time, 268 out of the 270 MPs present in the Parliament gave a vote of confidence to Prime Minister Prachanda. It was the highest number of votes of confidence ever received by the Prime Minister in the history of Nepal. All the parties including Nepali Congress, and CPN (Unified Socialist) gave him the vote of confidence.
