Current Affairs

Nepali Congress lawmaker Pushpa Bhusal has become the new Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, after securing 148 to 98 votes following an election held in the lower House Friday.

After a majority of MPs supported her candidacy with ‘Yea’ votes, she appeared a clear winner. A formal voting showed 148 votes favouring her and 98 favouring CPN-UML’s candidate Bidhya Bhattarai.

This was Bhusal’s second attempt to be elected Deputy Speaker. In 2018, she was defeated by communist alliance candidate Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe – who had to later resign quite abruptly to pave the way for another communist alliance candidate Agni Prasad Sapkota.

Sixty-one-year-old Bhusal comes from a family of pro-democracy activists in western Nepal’s Arghakhanchi district. Her father Kashi Nath Gautam was a frontline Nepali Congress activist, alongside BP Koirala.

Gautam went on to become a minister in the first democratically-elected government led by Koirala following Nepal's first-ever general elections in 1959.

The Deputy Speaker’s election came nearly two and half years after the position became vacant after Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe resigned in March 2018. But Bhusal may not be able to serve much time as Nepal is headed for general elections in November.

The eleventh-hour exercise to elect Deputy Speaker is seen as an attempt to give full shape to the Constitutional Council which makes important decisions regarding appointments in constitutional bodies.