Speaker Agni Sapkota has called an all-party meeting for 2pm Monday.

The all-party meeting call follows an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana by 98 lawmakers from the Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist), three key partners in the ruling coalition.

“The Speaker has invited all parties represented in the Parliament to discuss contemporary issues, including the House obstructions [by the CPN-UML],” said Shreedhar Neupane, press advisor to Speaker Sapkota.

Meanwhile, Monday’s scheduled House meeting has been postponed until Wednesday.

The main opposition UML has been obstructing the House proceedings for the last five months, accusing Speaker Sapkota of failing to act on the party’s decision in August to expel 14 of its lawmakers, who subsequently formed a new party named the CPN (Unified Socialist) under Madhav Nepal. The UML has charged Sapkota with facilitating the formation of a party by lawmakers who were expelled by the party.

Whether the UML will participate in Monday's all-party meeting is not clear, as it boycotted an earlier similar meeting called by Sapkota.

Sapkota called the all-party meeting hours after 98 lawmakers of the three ruling parties registered the impeachment motion against Rana, charging him with failing to perform his duties as per the constitution.

The registration of motion led to automatic suspension of Rana as the chief justice, and Deepak Kumar Karki, the senior-most justice at the Supreme Court, now will take over as acting chief justice.

The UML has already objected to the ruling parties’ move, calling it guerilla-style action aimed at destabilising politics and hampering the upcoming local level elections, which have been announced for May 13.

Two of the three parties—Maoist Centre and CPN (Unified Socialist)—were against the idea of local level elections on the government-announced date and were pushing for holding parliamentary polls in April-May.

The rapid developments also come on the heels of American warnings over the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC)-Nepal Compact. Washington has set a February 28 deadline for the Nepali political leadership to ratify the MCC compact.

The compact was signed in September 2017 under which Nepal will receive $500 million in grants from the United States for building electricity transmission lines and improving roads.

However, the Maoist Centre and the CPN (Unified Socialist) have opposed the compact’s parliamentary ratification saying some of its provisions need amendments.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was planning to table the MCC compact despite opposition from his coalition partners. Deuba was also trying to seek support of the main opposition UML in ratifying the compact. But tabling it in Parliament risked the coalition unity.

At least two last House meetings were postponed particularly because there were differences over MCC.

Earlier on Sunday after the ruling parties filed the impeachment motion against Rana, Subas Nembang, deputy leader of the UML Parliamentary Party, told the Post that his party’s serious attention has been drawn to the sudden move of the ruling coalition.

“The impeachment motion has come at a time when serious cases are pending at the Supreme Court, including the one filed by his party in relation to the formation of the party by some of the lawmakers who were expelled by our party,” said Nembang. “Our party will discuss it and come up with our opinion soon. We have taken this impeachment motion seriously.”

The UML has called a meeting of its Standing Committee later on Sunday in the evening and a meeting of the Parliamentary Party on Monday.