All 16 House committees get full shape

KATHMANDU: All 16 thematic committees of the Federal Parliament have taken full shape with the election of chairpersons of 12 committees.

The four committees of the National Assembly had already been formed, while 10 committees of the House of Representatives and two joint committee of both houses elected their chairpersons on Friday.

Ten of the 12 committees elected their chairpersons unanimously, while voting was held in two committees.

Ganesh Karki of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) defeated Madan Kumari Shah of the Nepali Communist Party (NCP) in the election for chairperson of the Committee for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Implementation of Directive Principles, Policies and Obligations of the State, a joint committee. Similarly, Ojaswi Sherchan of RSP defeated Guru Prasad Baral of CPN-UML in the election for chairperson of the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee.

Hari Dhakal has been elected as chairperson of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee, and Samiksha Baskota will lead the Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee. Similarly, Ashok Kumar Chaudhary has been elected chairperson of the Agriculture, Cooperatives and Natural Resources Committee, Ashish Gajurel will head the Infrastructure Development Committee, and Akriti Awasthi will lead the Women and Social Affairs Committee.

Similarly, Bodhanarayan Shrestha has been elected as the chairperson of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee, another joint committee; Rahbar Ansari as the chairperson of the Industry, Commerce, Labour and Consumer Welfare Committee; Sumnima Udas as the chairperson of the International Relations and Tourism Committee; Krishna Hari Budhathoki as the chairperson of the Finance Committee, and Bharat Khadka as the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee.

All the newly elected chairpersons, except Khadka, are from the RSP. RSP supported Khadka’s candidacy in PAC since the position is generally offered to the main opposition party all over the world.

Khadka is a Nepali Congress lawmaker from Doti.