Ruling parties continue to bargain for more seats

Even two weeks after the five ruling parties formed a seat-sharing task force to divide the seats of the House of Representatives and the Provincial Assemblies among them, the task force has not taken any decision because of the bargaining for more seats by the parties in the ruling coalition.

The task force and the top leaders of the ruling parties have been holding meetings at the Baluwatar residence of Prime Minister Deuba almost every day, and every meeting concludes by deciding to hold another meeting the next day. On Tuesday, they decided to finalise the issue by Tuesday, but they did nothing in that direction as of Tuesday evening.

Although the coordinator of the task force Krishna Sitaual was to submit a modality of seat division to the top leaders, no such report has been submitted so far. It is said that as the parties continue bargaining for more seats, the ruling leaders have not yet entered the issues of seat sharing.

Of the five parties in the ruling alliance, the Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) are bargaining for more seats. While the Maoist Centre has demanded at least 50 seats, the Unified Socialist is also demanding 40 of the 165 seats which are elected under the first-past-thepost system.

Although Rastriya Janamorcha will be satisfied with a single seat, Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal will not agree with less than 20 seats. When the four parties will take 111 seats, Nepali Congress is left with only 55 seats. Of course, NC is demanding 60 per cent seats considering its strength, which means at least 100 seats, and the remaining four parties will be dividing 65 seats among them.

Moreover, the Maoist Centre and Unified Socialist are not in a position to win even three seats each on their own. As such their bargaining looks unusual, but NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba is ready to give them as many as 75 seats, taking 90 seats for NC. It may not be a surprise if Deuba agrees to take only 85 seats and give 80 to other parties, because he is more dependent on Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Nepal than the leaders within NC to ensure his continuity as the PM even after the polls.