Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Friday told the Opposition alliance that she will seek advice from constitutional experts before taking a call on government formation after her office registered separate premiership claims from it and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, according to a media report.
Both Oli and Opposition leader Sher Bahadur Deuba presented their claims to the president on Friday, minutes before the 5:00 PM deadline set by Bhandari for the parties to stake a claim to form a new government.
Oli was the first to declare that he had the support of 153 lawmakers of the House of Representatives, a day after recommending to the president to initiate the process for formation of a new government in accordance to Article 76(5) of the Constitution, citing that he does not have adequate support to go through another floor test.
The letter he submitted had his signature along with the signatures of Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal chair Mahanta Thakur and the party's parliamentary party leader Rajendra Mahato.
Likewise, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba along with other leaders of the Opposition alliance reached Shital Niwas with signatures of 149 lawmakers including 27 lawmakers from the Khanal-Nepal faction of the CPN-UML. The president apparently told the Opposition leaders that she would take a call after consulting constitutional experts, The Himalayan Times reported.