CPN (UML) central vice-chairperson and province assembly member Astalaxmi Shakya has become the chief minister of Bagmati Pradesh. She was appointed chief minister by Province chief Vishnu Prasai on Wednesday night. As soon as she was appointed as the Chief Minister, Shakya took the oath of office and secrecy.
Shakya became the chief minister after Dormani Poudel, the leader of the UML Bagmati province parliamentary party and the chief minister of the province government, resigned from the post. After Poudel resigned from the post of parliamentary party leader and chief minister on Wednesday afternoon, the UML Bagmati Pradesh Sabha parliamentary party meeting unanimously selected Shakya as the party leader. UML has a majority in the provincial assembly.
Poudel became the Chief Minister of the provincial government on January 11, 2008. After Poudel resigned as the leader of the parliamentary party and the chief minister, a meeting of the UML Bagmati Pradesh parliamentary party held in Hetauda on Wednesday selected Shakya as the party leader, said Deepak Niraula, chief whip of the party. Poudal had proposed to make Shakya the leader of the party.
After UML senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal formed a new party and Shakya decided to remain in the party, Poudel was ready to lead the government by making him the leader of the parliamentary party. Shakya UML was with Nepal in the dispute.
Though party chairman KP Oli's party had a majority in the parliamentary party, the government would collapse if the Nepali side left. To save the government, the Oli faction tried to persuade the Nepalese faction to join the parliamentary committee. A proposal was also tabled in the provincial assembly to add a committee to celebrate the Nepal group. But after Nepal decided to form a new party, some province parliamentarians, including Shakya, decided not to leave the UML but to seek leadership in the government. After that, the Oli group forced Poudel to leave the post of parliamentary party leader and chief minister and decided to give it to Shakya.
UML has 56 MPs in the 110-member Bagmati Provincial Assembly. UML has the required 56 MPs to form a government. Of them, 35 were from the Oli faction and 21 from the Nepal faction. There are 23 MPs from the main opposition CPN-Maoist Center, 22 from the Nepali Congress, 3 from the Vibekshil Sajha, 2 from the Nepal Mazdur Kisan Party, 2 from the RPP, and one independent. One post is vacant.
Bagmati Pradesh