Claims made by Oli, Deuba did not have strong bases to win trust vote: President’s Office responds to Supreme Court

KATHMANDU, June 17: The Office of President has submitted its written response to the Supreme Court (SC) over the House dissolution case.  The response was submitted by Rup Narayan Bhattarai, the acting secretary at the office through the Office of Attorney General.  In its response, the office said that the claims staked by Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli for new government formation did not have strong bases to win trust vote as stated in Article 76 (6). In its 15-point written response submitted on Thursday afternoon, the Office of President argued that neither Oli nor Deuba could be appointed as the prime minister in accordance with Article 76 (5) as their claims were insufficient.  Prime Minister Oli also submitted his written response on Thursday itself. In his response, PM Oli claimed that the new government could not be formed based on the affiliation of the members of parliament to their respective parties. “As members can not act independently in the multi-party  parliamentary system, no new government could/can be formed through the equation existing in the recently dissolved House of Representatives,” he wrote. President Bidya Devi Bhandari, on May 21, rejected the two claims laid for the new government formation as per Article 76 (5). NC Deuba and PM Oli claimed to have the support of a majority of lawmakers in parliament. While PM Oli said that as many as 153 lawmakers --- 121 from the UML and 32 from the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) --- supported him for new government formation, Deuba also claimed to have support of 149 lawmakers --- 61 from NC, 49 from CPN (Maoist Center), 26 from ruling CPN-UML’s Madhav Nepal faction, 12 from Janata Samajbadi Party’s Upendra Yadav faction and an independent lawmaker. The claims from both the leaders were rejected citing the lack of strong bases for new government formation as per Article 76 (5).  After President Bidya Devi Bhandari, at the recommendation of the KP Oli-led Cabinet, dissolved the House on May 22, as many as 26 writ petitions, including one by  Sher Bahadur Deuba, President of Nepali Congress, have been filed at the apex court demanding it reinstate the 275-member lower house of parliament and appoint Deuba as the new prime minister as per Article 76 (5).  See the full document: