KATHMANDU, Aug 14: Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara has fixed the date for voting to pick the heads of 10 parliamentary committees under the House of Representatives on August 21.
Announcing the election date for next week, Mahara also instructed the general secretary of the federal parliament Manohar Bhattarai to publish the election schedule on Monday.
The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) is expected to head eight of the 10 lower house committees, while one committee each is expected to be headed by the main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) and ruling coalition partner Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN).
NCP struggles to pick heads, members of House panels
According to the ruling NCP sources, the party is likely to field Krishna Bhakta Pokharel as a candidate to head the Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee, while Khagraj Adhikari will contest for the post of Education and Health Committee chief, Niru Pal for the Development Committee and Jaipuri Gharti or Mukunda Neupane for the Industry, Commerce and Consumer Rights Committee.
Similarly, Pampha Bhusal or Krishna Gopal Shrestha will contest for the Sate Affairs Committee, Ghanashyam Bhusal or Mahesh Basnet for the Finance Committee, Purna Kumari Subedi or Haribol Gajurel for the Agriculture Committee and Anjana Bisankhe for the Education Committee.
Likewise, the ruling FSFN is likely to field Sarita Giri to head the International Relations or Labor Committee while the NC is almost certain to contest Bharat Shah for the post of Public Accounts Committee head.
Currently, the eldest members of the concerned parliamentary panels have been heading the committee meetings as ad-hoc chairs.
Meanwhile, the election to pick the head of the Parliamentary Hearings Committee is yet to be fixed. But according to the ruling party leaders, Yogesh Bhattarai of NCP is likely to head the committee.
Ashok Paudel, media advisor to the National Assembly Chairperson Ganesh Timilsina said that the upper house is scheduled to fix the elections to pick the heads of four committees under it on Tuesday.
Earlier, the main opposition NC had demanded to head at least four committees out of the total 16 committees under the lower and upper houses. But given the minority stake of NC in both the houses, the ruling party leaders are almost certain to lead all the committees except the Public Accounts Committee. The ruling NCP has shown its willingness to allot the PAC to the opposition party in line with the parliamentary tradition.
