Lower House to get chiefs of thematic panels today

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Aug. 28: The 10 thematic committees of the House of Representatives will get their chairpersons on Monday almost nine months after the election to the HoR.  

Of them, nine chairs will be elected unopposed as only one lawmaker filed their nominations for each committee on Sunday.

However, the election will decide the chairman of the Industry, Commerce, Labour and Consumer Welfare Committee.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire announced the elections at 3:00 pm on Monday to elect the chairmen of the 10 thematic committees of the House of Representatives. 

The political parties picked names for the same on Sunday. The parties of the ruling coalition and the main opposition forged a consensus to pick leadership in nine of the 10 parliamentary committees. 

On Thursday, Speaker Devraj Ghimire fixed the date and time of the election, and the parties finalised the names of the candidates to lead the committees.

According to the Parliament Secretariate,  the ruling Nepali Congress filed nominations to lead three committees. NC Lawmakers Ramhari Khatiwada filed his candidature to lead the State Affairs Committee, Santosh Chalise to head the Finance Committee and Arzu Rana Deuba to lead the Agriculture Committee. 

Similarly, the main opposition CPN-UML filed nominations for the leadership in the Public Account Committee and Women Children and Elderly Citizen Committee. Rishikesh Pokharel and Kiran Kumar Sah filed their nominations respectively.

Bimala Subedi of the CPN-Maoist Centre field candidacy for the leadership in the  Law, Justice and Human rights Committee while Deepak Singh from Rastriya Prajatantra Party filed his candidacy for the Infrastructure Development Committee. 

Likewise, Bhanubhakta Joshi of the CPN (Unified Socialist) filed his candidacy to lead the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee. Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal leader Rajkishore Yadav filed his candidacy to lead the Committee for the International Relations and Tourism.

Two candidates Abdul Khan from Janmat Party and Ganesh Parajuli from Rastriya Swatantra Party filed nominations for the leadership of the Industry, Commerce Labour and Consumer Welfare Committee. Election will be held only between the two on Monday. 

Out of the 16 committees in the federal parliament, the four under the National Assembly have their chairs, while 10 committees of the Lower House and two joint committees were without leadership.