Kathmandu: Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli on Monday lost a vote of confidence of the House of Representatives.
Announcing the result of the voting on the motion tabled by the Prime Minister, Speaker Agni Sapkota announced that 93 votes were cast in favor of the motion and 124 against the motion. A total of 15 lawmakers remained neutral.
PM Oli required 136 votes to win the vote of confidence. Nepal’s lower house has a total of 275 members. Of them, four members were relieved by the Maoist Center after they decided to stay with KP Oli led UML.
Lawmakers from Madhav Kumar faction of the ruling party abstained from the voting process while CPN (Maoist Center), Nepali Congress (NC) and Yadav-Bhattarai faction of JSPN voted against the motion.
Given the failure of KP Oli to win the vote of confidence, there is no possibility to form a government as per Article 76 (1) of the Constitution as no party in the assembly has a single party majority. According to Article 76 (2), opposition parties have to gain majority collectively to form an alternative government. Failing on that, the president can appoint a leader from the largest party as the prime minister according to Article 76 (3).
Earlier, lawmakers of the Nepal faction were mulling to resign en masse in a bid to thwart a vote of confidence for the Prime Minister. The faction had demanded that Oli should withdraw all the decisions made after March 12, 2021. However, they decided to boycott the meeting as no agreement was reached.
On the other hand, the Mahato-Thakur faction of JSPN remained neutral.
In a surprise move, the Prime Minister on May 2 had decided to seek a vote of confidence in Parliament. A special session of the House was summoned for today for the purpose.
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