Rajendra Rai stakes claim to Province 1 CM

As the second Chief Minister (CM) of Province 1 Bhim Acharya resigned following only 68 days in office, a coalition of opposition parties in Province 1 collected signatures of 50 provincial assembly members to elect the next chief minister of the Province on Monday afternoon.  

It may be noted that 47 signatures are enough for one to be elected as the chief minister from the 92-member strong  provincial assembly. 

A total of 59 lawmakers belonging to Nepali Congress (NA), CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP)  and Federal Democratic Forum submitted their signatures to the Province Chief Somnath Adhikari 'Pyasi'.  

Among the signatories are 21 PA members of Nepali Congress, 15 of CPN (Maoist Center), 10 of CPN (Unified Socialist), three of JSP and one PA member from Federal Democratic Forum. 

After the resignation of CM Acharya, Province 1 Chief Pyasi has set a deadline until 1:00 pm Tuesday to submit claims to the post of the new Chief Minister. 

If everything goes as planned, Rajendra Rai is likely to become the new CM of Province. 1 on Tuesday.  Rai is the Parliamentary Party leader of CPN (Unified Socialist), the third largest party of the five-party coalition. 

Rai was elected PA member from Bhojpur. He switched to CPN (Unified Socialist) from CPN (UML) after the party was officially registered at the Election Commission on 25 August. The CPN (US) was formed under the leadership of former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, after breaking away from the CPN-UML.