Kathmandu: Defying the spirit of a political consensus, the ruling alliance elected Indira Rana of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party as the new Deputy Speaker of the House of representatives.
Rana secured 166 votes while her only rival –Mukta Kumari Yadav of the main opposition Nepali congress –got 97 votes in the House where a total of 264 members were present and all but not one voted.
The political parties had agreed in principle and mostly followed in practice in the past that the post of the Dy Speaker in both Houses of parliament should go to the opposition if the post of the Chairperson/speaker is occupied by the ruling party.
Dev Raj Ghimire of the ruling communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist had won the vote for speakership on Thursday, but the ruling alliance chose to field its own candidate denying the post to the main opposition.