The Nepali Congress (NC) has claimed that the left alliance is creating pressure on the Election Commission (EC) to publish the results of the federal parliament elections under the proportional representation (PR) category before the National Assembly (NA) is elected.

 The ruling party said on Tuesday that the left alliance, of CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist Centre), was goading the EC into acting against the constitutional provision.

The left alliance on Monday had urged the election governing body to immediately publish the results of the House of Representatives elections under the PR category to make way for a new government formation.

The NC, which suffered a major election setback, is apparently not pleased with the left alliance demanding the EC to publish the poll results before the election of the NA or the Upper House.   

A meeting of the party’s office bearers on Tuesday concluded that the left alliance was creating unnecessary pressure on the EC with its demand.

NC leader Bal Krishna Khand said that it was a rash move on the part of the left alliance to try to persuade the EC to take decisions by breaching the constitutional provisions.

“As per the article 84(8) of constitution, EC cannot publish final election results under the PR category,” Khand told the media after the meeting.

Besides discussing the issues of PR results publication, NA election and the new government formation, the NC meeting also  decided to hold the party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) to review the election results. The date for the CWC meeting, however, was not decided.

 The CWC meeting, which NC leaders say will convene soon, is expected to decide whether or not the party will be calling for its Mahasamiti meeting.

A section of the NC young leaders, including Gagan Thapa, Nabindra Raj Joshi, Dhanaraj Gurung, Badri Pandey, Kundan Kafle and Ram Hari Khatiwada, has been demanding for the meeting of the party’s apex decision-making body to discuss leadership change following a poor performance in the elections of federal parliament and provincial assembly. 

However, NC President and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, and several other party veterans have ruled out the possibility of leadership change over election outcome.

In Tuesday’s meeting of the NC office bearers, Deuba reportedly expressed anger over the youth leaders for publicly demanding that the party should convene its Mahasamiti meeting to change the incumbent leadership.