After four months of unrest, Koshi Province is still facing political turmoil regarding appointment of the Chief Minister. On August 2, Uddhav Thapa was appointed as the Chief Minister. For the second time on 24^th August, the Supreme Court has declared an interim order to Uddhav Thapa government to a mere caretaker. Such political chaos has severely affected the budget of the province.

Timeline of Major Events

 

Date	Events
2nd August	Uddhav Thapa appointed as the Chief Minister of Koshi Province
21st August	UML registered a writ in the Supreme Court against the Koshi Province Government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thapa
24th August	Supreme Court ruled the vote of confidence secured by Uddhav Thapa, as unconstitutional

 

The Koshi Crisis

The Koshi Province has been indulged in tricky arithmetic over the appointment of Chief Minister and securing a vote of confidence. It has already been four months since the political distress over the same began. The arithmetic complexity of the Provincial Assembly has led Political parties in active game of gaining and losing power. The province is now victim of power struggle between Congress and Unified Marxist–Leninist (UML), appointment and re-appointment of Chief Minister, repeated writ-petition in Supreme Court, and the controversial role of Province Assembly Speaker.
 

The tricky arithmetic in Provincial Assembly

On August 1st, the speaker of the Provincial Assembly Baburam Gautam resigned from the post which shrinked Province Assembly size to 92 member. As soon as Uddhav Thapa got appointed as Chief Minister, Gautam was appointed as the Minister for Economic Affairs, which eventually expanded the Assembly size to 93. In the 93-member state assembly, there are 29 MPs from Congress, 13 from the Maoists, 4 from the United Socialist Party and one from the Janata Samajwadi Party representing the coalition party. 46 MPs including 40 from UML and 6 from Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) are in the opposition, including the Deputy Speaker.

In order to gain the vote of confidence, Uddhav Thapa held a press conference on August 11 and has pledged to address the demands of the Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), which has been taking a stance of not participating in the government expressing dissatisfaction with the naming of the state. JSP had withdrawn its support from Hikmat Karki led Koshi Government on May 31st. 
 

Effect of Political Maneuvering on Budget

Power politics aside, the situation in Koshi Province would also effect the administrative and fiscal activities. The political maneuvering in the Koshi Province has severely impacted the budget. It started with the Maoists and Janata Samajwadi Party(JSP)  withdrawing their support from the government under then Chief Minister Hikmat Karki who was in the minority. Karki, who had also held the responsibility of the Minister of Economic Affairs and Planning, unveiled the budget through the ordinance on 15th June by skipping the provincial assembly.

The Thapa led government was planning to bring the replacement bill to replace the ordinance.  It is certain that the Koshi state budget will go into the void as the government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thapa becomes a mere caretaker by the order of the Supreme Court on 24th August. The Court issued such order in response to the writ-petition registered by CPN-UML on 24^th August.

As per provision of Article 202 of the Constitution, if an ordinance is not verified or dismissed within 60 days of the introduction of the ordinance, it will automatically become inactive. That is, the government was expected to get the ordinance verified by the Province Head by August 27. But, the order of the Supreme Court refrained it from taking any long-term decision.

Thus, the deadline for either endorsing the budget ordinance in its current form or replacing it with a new one ended on August 27. The provincial budget went into a vacuum, affecting the financial function like tax collection of different ministries in Province. Along with it, the administrative services received by the residents of the province has also been affected. The Koshi Province has become first province to be in budget holiday.
 

The vacant state of the Province Speaker

The Speaker Baburam Gautam had to step down in order to make way for Uddhav Thapa to become Chief Minister. With his resignation, the post of Province Speaker became vacant. The article 168(3) of the Constitution demands seeking Vote of Confidence within 30 days of appointment of the Chief Minister. With the same motive, Deputy Speaker Srijana Danuwar remained absent citing reasons for medical treatment; she had assigned Israil Mansuri to Chair the House. If Danuwar was present in the Provine Assembly, Uddhav Thapa would have passed the Vote of Confidence without any havoc. Thus, her absence signifies the intention of the UMLto form government under clause 168(3) of the Constitution as being largest political party in the Assembly. With her absence, Province Assembly was then left with no Speaker or Deputy Speaker to Chair the House.

As per the Koshi Province parliament Regulations, in the event that both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker step down from their positions or are not present during the meeting, one of the four presidium members will preside over the provincial parliament. The four members of the presidium are Malati Kumari Limbu of the UML, Geeta Timsina of the Maoist Centre, Ambar Bahadur Bista of the RPP, and Israil Mansuri of the Congress. Congress’s Mansuri then chaired the provincial assembly.
 

Passing Vote of Confidence via dubious methods

Thr role of Provincial Speaker has once again been questioned. During the appointment of Uddhav Thapa Government on July, the former Provincial Speaker Baburam Gautam was stirred in controversy. By ignoring the neutral role of the Speaker, Gautam had intentionally voted while appointing the Chief Minister. The main opposition party UML had filed writ petition against such move of the Provincial Speaker. The Supreme Court order dismissed the appointment of the Uddhav Thapa. 

Likewise, the acting Province Speaker Mansuri has repeated the same mistake during the Vote of Confidence. As the Court had already created precedent regarding the neutral role of the Speaker, which implies Speaker cannot take part in voting process. But, Israil Mansuri signed the vote of confidence in favor of Uddhav Thapa.
It is necessary to understand that Speaker and Deputy Speaker are non-partisan, however, the ones chairing the session aren't. Thus, there is also a contention that if the one chairing the session can or can't vote. Such situations were not envisioned in the Constitution.
 

Supreme Court

The CPN-UML has again registered writ-petition in Supreme Court. It demanded that since Chief Minister Uddhav Thapa was secured Vote of Confidence in an unconstitutional way, his vote of confidence should be withdrawn. The interim order of Supreme Court on 24th August ruled that the vote of confidence secured by Uddhav Thapa was unconstitutional. The single bench of Ishwar Khatiwada stated that the presiding member does not have the power to vote on any motion submitted to the Provincial Assembly for consideration, except in case of equal votes as defined in Article 186 of the Constitution.
 

Political Parties and their self-interest

In Koshi, the coalition party and the opposition parties are engaged in their own political maneuvers amid the mathematical complexity regarding the Province Assembly. The feverish rush for power, whether in provinces or at the federal level, puts into doubt the legitimacy of parliamentary democracy itself. The tendency to form/disintegrate collations based on power interests and interference from the federal level seems to be more prevalent in provincial politics. The evident examples are federal level pressurizing to remove UML led government from Koshi, and the resignation of Baburam Gautam as requested upon by Prime Minister. Such practices reduces citizen’s trust towards democracy and federalism.