Nepal's Parliament passes interim constitution

Kathmandu, Jan 15 (UNI) Nepal's Parliament today unanimously approved a new interim constitution which has not given any role to the King for the first time in the history of 239-year-old rule of the monarchy.

Under the new constitution, Prime Minister will also fulfill the role of the head of state and the King has been suspended until the election of the constituent assembly to be held in June this year.

There are 330 MPs in the interim constitution as all the MPs of the restored House will automatically be the MPs of the new interim parliament.

The Nepali Congress has 85 MPs, CPN-UML and Maoists 83 each and others are from the smaller parties.

The MPs, who supported the King, are not the members in the new parliament as they were disqualified by the political parties.

The Interim constitution will be in place until the election of the constituent assembly by the mid of this year and that will decide the fate of monarchy in Nepal.

Earlier in the day, the eldest member of the house, Bal Bahadur Rai of Nepali Congress, took the oath and later administered oath to all the 329 members of the interim legislature.

The first meeting of the new house started the process of selecting a new speaker. Speaker Subas Nembang said he had to set these procedures through his special orders.

After the interim constitution is adopted the house is likely to be dissolved.

UNI