Nepal: Gandaki Province Chief Minister fails vote of confidence

Pokhara [Nepal], June 10 (ANI): Nepal's Gandaki Province Chief Minister Prithivi Subba Gurung has failed to win a vote of confidence from the province assembly on Thursday.
Of the total 61 members (including Speaker), Gurung received a total of 27 voted in favour of motion while 30 others votes against Chief Minister Gurung. Similarly, one member of the assembly chose to stay neutral during the voting.
With this, Gurung has been automatically relieved from his position as the Chief Minister as per Article 169 (1) of the constitution. Gurung had first been appointed as Gandaki CM after the left alliance comprising CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) recorded a landslide victory in the 2017 elections.
He was, however, reappointed as the Chief Minister on May 12 in his capacity as the parliamentary party leader of the largest political party in the provincial assembly after the coalition partner Maoist Center withdrew its support to the Gurung-led government.
Gurung was required to test his fate as the executive head of the province through the confidence motion within 30 days of the date of appointment. Earlier, Gurung had stepped down from his position in a tactical way just a day before the province assembly was all set to vote on a no-confidence motion registered against him.
The opposition parties including the Nepali Congress (NC), the Maoist Center, Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and Rastriya Janamorcha (RJM) had proposed NC's parliamentary party leader Krishna Chandra Nepali Pokharel as the new chief minister in their no-confidence motion against Gurung. (ANI)