Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal (RPP-N), the fourth largest force in the Constituent Assembly, has formally proposed reappointment of the President and the Vice President in the new political set-up.

The central committee (CC) meeting of the party that concluded on Friday demanded re-election of the President and the Vice President from the new Constituent Assembly. The party argued that the continuity of the incumbent head of state, Ram Baran Yadav, and his deputy would be undemocratic and against the people’s verdict.

Recalling that the top posts were shared among the major political parties after 2008 CA election, RPP-Nepal said

that there should be proportionate division of such posts among the new political forces. In the first CA, the UCPN (Maoist) led the government as the largest party while the Nepali Congress got the presidential berth and the Speaker came to CPN-UML’s fold. The fourth largest party, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum Nepal secured the Vice President’s post.

In a statement issued after the CC meeting, the party noted its demand for the re-appointment of the President and the Vice President reflecting the people’s mandate demonstrated in the recent polls.

Among the top political parties, the NC has stood against the idea of replacing the incumbent President citing constitutional provisions that the new head of state will be elected only after the promulgation of the new constitution. The UML, which emerged as the second largest party post election, is for sharing top five posts of President, Vice President, prime minister, Speaker and the chairman of the constitutional committee of the CA among the major political parties. The party argues that the incumbent President should be replaced by a new one in the context of the new mandate. The RPP-Nepal, however, has announced not to join the new government.

The party has also demanded that the agreement reached among the major three parties to form a high-level political mechanism be scrapped.

“We are strongly against the formation of any kind of mechanism outside the CA,” said party spokesman Mohan Shrestha.

Meanwhile, the Central Committee expelled five CC members for conspiring to form a new party. It scrapped the membership of Shyam Timilsina, Bal Krishna Neupane, Shastra Dutta Pant, Badri Bahadur KC and Ganesh Sherchan while six other CC members including Deputy General Secretary duo Prahalad Shah and Ramesh Shrestha have been asked to clarify in writing why they signed a document proposing to form a new party. A team of 20 CC members led by former minister Tanka Dhakal had announced defection from the party but most of them returned to the mother party apologising for their mistake.