CPN (Maoist Center) elected the party chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal its parliamentary party leader, unanimously, on Thursday.

With his election as parliamentary party leader, Dahal told his lawmakers that he would be now staking his claim for prime ministership with the Congress President and parliamentary party leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and CPN (Unified Socialist) chair and parliamentary party leader Madhav Nepal.

Dahal is desperately working to clinch the prime ministerial position for the first half of the five-year term of the House of Representatives.

Earlier, the party’s office bearers meeting had decided to elect Dahal as the leader of the parliamentary party. The decision was endorsed by the Maoist Center’s parliamentary party meeting later in the day.

“Our parliamentary party’s meeting today [Thursday], has unanimously elected Chairman Dahal as the leader of our parliamentary party,” Maoist lawmaker Rekha Sharma told the Post. “The party has also elected Hitraj Pande, its chief whip of the House of Representatives.”

Pande was elected as a member of parliament in the Proportional Representation category.

However, the meeting of the parliamentary party held at Singhadurbar failed to elect a deputy leader because two of its leaders - Janardan Sharma and Barshaman Pun, staked their claims for the position.

A similar dispute had occurred with regard to the party’s general secretary post when the same two leaders Sharma and Pun had staked their claims. After failing to pick either of the two leaders as party general secretary for months, Dahal eventually promoted Dev Prasad Gurung to the party’s key post.

It is likely that the post of deputy leader of the parliamentary party could go to another leader, if the fight between the two leaders continued.

“There is a chance that Mahendra Yadav, a leader of Nepal Samajbadi Party, who contested the polls on our election symbol, could become the deputy leader,” said Sharma. “The party will take a decision on its deputy leader and whip later, after discussions among the leaders.”

As Pande got the chief whip’s position, a female member could become the whip so as to make the position inclusive, Sharma said.

The party also elected its senior vice-chair Narayan Kaji Shrestha as the leader of the parliamentary party in the National Assembly.

The party had earlier selected Gopi Bahadur Sarki Achhami and Ganga Kumari Belbase as the chief whip and whip, respectively, for the National Assembly.