By Xinhua,
Kathmandu : Stunned by the results of Thursday’s Constituent Assembly (CA) poll, the Communist Party Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), one of the largest constituents in the coalition government has decided to withdraw from it, The Kathmandu Post reported on Monday.
The party’s Standing Committee meeting on Sunday decided to pull out of the government, “respecting the people’s mandate” expressed through the elections, reported the daily.
“The election results have shown that we lost our popularity. The people’s mandate is against our expectations and there is no point in staying in the government,” newly designated acting General Secretary of the party Amrit Kumar Bohara, said, adding that “Therefore, we have decided to withdraw from the government on moral ground.”
Bohora stepped in as the acting chief of the party after the Standing Committee accepted Madhav Kumar Nepal’s resignation submitted on Saturday. Nepal had resigned from his post, taking all responsibilities for the party’s unexpected defeat in the election.
Bohora said the CPN-UML ministers will collectively resign from the government. “As soon as all our ministers arrive in Kathmandu from their constituencies, they will tender their resignation to prime minister,” he said.
“We had never expected such results. The party will analyze all aspects of our defeat,” Bohara was quoted by the daily as saying.
The CPN-UML, which was the second largest political party after the Nepali Congress party after the last parliamentary election in 1999, has lost most of its pocket constituencies in the CA election.