New Delhi: Nepal’s CPN-UML party leader Dev Raj Ghimire was on Thursday elected Speaker of the House of Representatives after a decisive vote in Parliament in which he got the support of 167 MPs.
Ghimire is up against Nepali Congress MLA Ishwari Nupane. The House of Representatives (HOR) meeting saw 167 votes in favor of Ghimire, 100 votes against, while one legislator abstained to elect Ghimire as speaker.
Only 138 votes are needed for victory in the 275-member lower house. Pashupati Shamsher Rana, the oldest MP who presided over the meeting as speaker, said, “I announce that the motion to elect Ghimire as speaker has been approved by a majority.”
CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Centre), Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, Rashtriya Swatantra Party, Janata Samajwadi Party, Janmat Party, Nagrik Immunti Party and independent MPs Amresh Kumar Singh, Prabhu Shah and Yogendra Mandal voted in favor of Ghimire.
