HEADLINE NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Deuba appointed new Prime Minister
'Top priority to solving Maoist issue'

BY KRISHNA SHARMA

Kathmandu, July 22: His Majesty King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev appointed Sher Bahadur Deuba as the country’s new Prime Minister today.

His Majesty granted audience to Deuba this evening after the latter was elected leader of the parliamentary party of the ruling Nepali Congress.

According to the Principal Press Secretariat of His Majesty the King, appointing Deuba as the country’s new Prime Minister, His Majesty the King thanked the outgoing Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala.

After his landslide victory as the party’s new leader in the parliament, the visibly exulted Deuba told the media that his first and foremost priority as the head of the government would be to address the Maoist problem, which has caused a great loss to the country.

He attributed his victory to the grace and goodwill of the party’s senior leader duo -- Girija Prasad Koirala and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.

"Despite enjoying majority in the Nepali Congress Parliamentary Party (NCPP) our respected party President Koirala stepped down from the government to give a new direction to the country. Since it is a great sacrifice we should learn from this," the newly appointed Prime Minister said.

Deuba called the Maoist insurgency issue as one of the major problems faced by the country and said that before tackling the issue he would seek consensus from among the political parties – both within and outside the Parliament.

Stating it would be difficult to solve the problem without consent from all sectors of the society, he said, "I will try to evolve a common approach among the political parties. After that, we will be holding dialogues with the Maoists for the peaceful solution to the problem."

It may be recalled that the CPN-Maoists had launched their "People’s War" in 1996 when Deuba was the Prime Minister of a coalition government.

Prime Minister Deuba, meanwhile, said he would also pursue the 14-point agenda for national consensus of former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and try to take the agenda to conclusion.

Earlier, Deuba was elected as leader of the NC’s parliamentary party defeating party General Secretary Sushil Koirala by an overwhelming margin of 32 votes.

Deuba was voted by 72 out of the 113 members of the NC in the House of Representatives. Koirala, the other contender, received 40 votes and one vote was invalid. The election was held at the party’s parliamentary office at Singha Durbar this afternoon.

The election result was announced by Basu Risal, coordinator of the Election Committee formed to elect the party’s new parliamentary leader.

Appreciating the practice of voting to elect the leader of the NCPP as democratic, Deuba thanked his contestant Sushil Koirala.

In his response Koirala, the defeated candidate, said he would extend his full cooperation to the party’s new leader in the parliament both personally and as the general secretary of the party.

The election for the new NC leader in the parliament was held after the outgoing Prime Minister and NC President Girija Prasad Koirala resigned as the head of the majority government on July 19.

The election fervour today had suddenly changed when one of the expected candidate Ramchandra Poudel announced last night that he would not be contesting. Similarly, Chakra Prasad Bastola, whose name had also come up as a possible candidate, also remained quiet.

In today’s election, the nomination of Sushil Koirala was proposed by Govinda Raj Joshi and was seconded by Dr. Rambaran Yadav.

Deuba’s candidacy was proposed by Khum Bahadur Khadka and was seconded by Chiranjibi Wagle.

Meanwhile, this is Deuba’s second tenure as the country’s chief Executive. He had headed the coalition government of the Nepali Congress, Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Nepal Sadhvabana Party for 18 months in the 1995/96 period. But the coalition government was toppled by two of his own party’s MPs who had abstained the crucial vote of confidence in the parliament.

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