Members of Parliament (MPs) affiliated to the ruling Seven Party Alliance (SPA) have started collecting signatures to register impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Keshav Raj Rajbhandari and other Commissioners at the Election Commission (EC).

Members of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), speaking to the journalists after releasing the human rights monitoring report of the two months after the announcement of the ceasefire, Friday, Jul 07 06. nepalnews.com/rh

Members of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), speaking to the …
Talking to Nepalnews, chief whip of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) parliamentary party, Mahendra Pandey, said the impeachment motion would be registered at the Parliament Secretariat on Sunday. He said the ruling alliance had decided to impeach CEC Rajbhandari and other Election Commissioners for their role in conducting the controversial municipal level elections in February this year. Only 21 percent of the eligible voters had cast their votes in the municipal polls boycotted by major political parties.

UML’s Pandey said some 70 MPs belonging to the SPA have already signed on the impeachment motion. According to the country’s constitution, one-fourth MPs of the House of Representatives can register impeachment motion against office-bearers of the constitutional bodies. The motion gets endorsed only if two-third members of HoR endorse it. Nearly 90 percent members of the HoR belong to the ruling SPA.

Similarly, MPs are also preparing a separate motion at the Human Rights and Foreign Affairs committee of the House of Representatives to sack chairman and members of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

“We have been filing a separate motion since the NHRC officials failed to uphold citizens’ human rights during the pro-democracy movement and acted as a front organization for the royal regime,” said Pandey. He did not elaborate.

Addressing a press meet in the capital on Friday, chairman of NHRC, Nayan Bahadur Khatri, said there was no ground to allege them of incompetence by the parliament. He said he and his team were ready to resign “if the responsible authority indicated them for the same.” He is believed to be indicating towards Prime Minister G P Koirala.

Khatri was re-appointed to the post last year while other members were appointed for the first time by the royal government.

Over 30 rights groups have been demanding resignation of the NHRC office bearers alleging them of having supported the erstwhile royal regime. NHRC office bearers refute such allegations.

Meanwhile, UML lawmaker Pandey refuted reports that separate motions were being tabled at the parliament as ‘pressure tactic’ to force the EC and NHRC office bearers to resign. He, however, said it was up to the office-bearers concerned to take appropriate decision looking at the gravity of the situation.