Kathmandu: Twelve days after Nepali Congress unanimously voted in favor of Prime Minister Puhpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda in his floor test, a senior Nepali Congress leader Dr Shekhar Koirala has said that the party should not have done so. He said Congress made a mistake by giving a vote of confidence to the PM.
Dr Koirala was addressing the meeting of leaders and cadres close to him at Anupam Foodland in Battisputali on Sunday. He stressed that Congress should stand as a credible opposition in the parliament. “We made a mistake by giving a vote of confidence to the prime minister. I had proposed in the executive committee meeting that we should stand neutral. But this was not listened to,” he said. “We were obliged to follow the decision of the majority but we should not have given a vote of confidence.”
In a surprising political twist, Nepali Congress, the party which emerged as the largest force in the federal parliamentary elections held in November and the party that had earlier denied sharing power with Maoist chairperson Dahal, voted in favor of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ in the floor test in parliament on January 10.
Nepali Congress had been widely criticized for rendering the parliament and the government opposition-less. Though some of the Congress leaders, including general secretary duo Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma had registered a note of dissent against the party’s decision, nearly all Congress leaders had voted in favor of Prachanda.
With the support of Congress, Prachanda had secured a total of 268 votes from a total of 272 MPs present in the House meeting. Only Chitra Bahadur KC of Rastriya Janamorcha, and Prem Suwal of Nepal Workers Peasants Party had voted against Prachanda.
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