With both the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML claiming the role of main opposition in Parliament, the meeting of the House of Representatives has been postponed for nearly three weeks.

The House meeting scheduled for Wednesday will now be held on March 19. Bharat Raj Gautam, general secretary at the Parliament Secretariat announced the postponement through a notice on Wednesday morning a few hours before the House meeting, which was scheduled for 1 pm.

“The House has been postponed until March 19 because of different festivals and the elections of the President and Vice President,” Ek Ram Giri, spokesperson for the secretariat, told the Post. The Holi festival is on Monday while the elections of the President and Vice President are scheduled for March 9 and March 17, respectively.

Aides to Speaker Devraj Ghimire, however, said the main reason for the deferral was the dispute between the largest and second largest parties over who should take the opposition benches.

“The prime minister’s seat has been shifted to the right corner of the hall. If both the Congress and the UML got opposition benches, that wouldn’t look nice,” an aide to Ghimire said on the condition of anonymity. In the House, the opposition parties are seated to the left of the Speaker and the ruling parties to the right.

CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was appointed prime minister on December 25 with the backing of seven parties including the UML, which has 79 lawmakers. However, differences grew between the two communist parties after the Maoist Centre decided to support the Nepal Congress candidate for President.

The UML on Monday withdrew its support to the government and recalled its ministers after Dahal on Sunday stopped then foreign minister Bimala Rai Poudyal from traveling to Geneva to attend the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Now the UML is also demanding the opposition space. But the Congress, which gave Dahal its vote of trust and partnered with the ruling parties in the presidential polls, continues to occupy the opposition benches. But the parliament secretariat has not yet assigned the main opposition status to the Congress.

Also there is a petition sub judice at the Supreme Court that claims the Congress should not be given the role of main opposition since it gave a vote of confidence to Prime Minister Dahal. “We are awaiting the court’s verdict on the dispute,” said Giri.

An official at the secretariat said the meeting was postponed in anticipation of some clarity on the dispute in a few days. Dahal is preparing to expand his Cabinet after the presidential election by inducting ministers from the Congress and other parties.

Congress leader Ram Chandra Paudel and UML vice-chair Subas Nembang are contesting for President.

“The UML will become the main opposition once the Congress joins the government,” Giri said. “That will automatically resolve the problem.”