Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) lawmaker Ram Bir Manandhar has announced resignation to get leader Bam Dev Gautam elected to the House of Representatives (HoR).
"Gautam played an important role for electoral alliance and eventual unification of the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center)," Manandhar stated addressing a press conference organized at Bijuli Bazar to announce his resignation on Tuesday. "The whole country and not just Kathmandu-7 will be developed if he comes to the parliament."
He revealed that he has already presented consent letter to CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. "The secretariat meeting will take a decision on that and then I will hand over resignation letter to the speaker," he said.
He revealed that he has resigned as per the party's instruction.
"We all are Nepalis and live inside Nepal. None of us are from outside or inside," he responded when reminded that he is not from Kathmandu.
CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had proposed in the Monday's secretariat meeting to make Gautam HoR member by holding by-election in Kathmandu-7.
Dahal had claimed that he, Gautam and elected lawmaker from the constituency Manandhar have already agreed to that regard.
Manandhar was elected with 18,102 votes from Kathmandu-7 in the last election. RPP's Bikram Thapa had received 10,079 votes with support of Nepali Congress (NC).
Gautam has been demanding he be brought to the HoR in almost all the secretariat meetings claiming that he was victim of betrayal by the then CPN-UML leaders and cadres in the general election. He had lost to Sanjay Kumar Gautam of NC by 753 votes in Bardiya-1 despite the alliance of UML with the then Maoist Center.
There were efforts to get him elected from Dolpa earlier but cadres put pressure on the elected lawmaker Dhan Bahadur Buda to not resign. Gautam also did not insist stating that he does not even know leaders and cadres of Dolpa.
A Baluwatar source claims Manandhar has demanded with Dahal and Gautam that he should be elected to the National Assembly and made minister.
