The floor test of Sudurpaschim Chief Minister Dirgha Bahadur Sodari was postponed at the last moment on Saturday after the major coalition partner CPN-UML sought more time to decide on the issue.

Sodari, a leader of CPN (Unified Socialist), was appointed chief minister of the province on April 18 despite his bitter relations with the UML’s local politicians. The Unified Socialist was born out of a factional dispute in the UML, with former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal forming the new party in 2021.

The UML was compelled to accept Sodari as the chief minister, and the party is now buying time before a vote of trust. This makes Sodari’s position shaky.

At the chief minister’s request, the provincial assembly was scheduled to meet on Saturday for the trust vote. However, the meeting was postponed in the afternoon, for the second time. Earlier, the assembly had set a Friday meeting.

Some UML provincial assembly members flew to Kathmandu on Saturday morning to discuss the matter with the party’s central leaders, leaving the confidence motion in limbo.

However, provincial minister for Physical Infrastructure and Development Kailash Chaudhary expressed his confidence that Chief Minister Sodari will win the vote of trust in a few days despite the postponement of meetings.

“The UML is yet to select ministerial candidates for the provincial Cabinet and the CPN (Maoist Centre) is also still discussing the portfolios of its leaders in the government. This is delaying the vote of trust,” Chaudhary told the Post. But the delay poses no threat to the incumbent provincial government, he added.

Sodari, who earlier appointed two ministers from the Nagarik Unmukti Party, leads a three-member Cabinet.

The UML leaders accused the chief minister of scheduling the assembly meeting in haste, without consulting them.

Rajendra Singh Rawal, the UML’s assembly leader in Sudurpaschim, said the chief minister appointed on April 18 still has sufficient time before the expiry of the month-long constitutional deadline.

The constitution requires a chief minister appointed with the support of two or more parties to obtain a vote of confidence from the assembly no later than 30 days after taking charge.

“We have yet to agree on the common minimum programme of the provincial government. We need to reach a logical conclusion on the issue before we give our vote to the chief minister,” Rawal, who flew to Kathmandu from Dhangadhi on Saturday morning, told the Post. “The chief minister planned the assembly meeting without consulting the major coalition partner.”

Rawal said they had requested the chief minister to defer the trust vote by a few days also because Daman Bahadur Bhandari of the UML, who won the election in Bajhang (A) on April 27, is mourning his father’s death.

“Our party asked the chief minister to delay the plan because our provincial assembly member has not even taken the oath of office after his election,” Rawal said.

Sodari had staked his claim to the chief ministerial position claiming the support of 27 assembly members—four from the Unified Socialist, 10 from the UML, 10 from the Maoist Centre, two from the Nagarik Unmukti Party (Ranjita Shrestha faction), and from independent lawmaker Tara Prasad Joshi.

On the day of his appointment, Chief Minister Sodari appointed Kailash Chaudhary of Nagarik Unmukti Party (NUP) the minister for physical infrastructure and development. Chaudhary, who was vying for the post of chief minister, from the Ranjita Shrestha faction of the NUP, later accepted the ministerial position. Later, Tika Thapa from the same party was appointed the minister for Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Earlier, Sudurpaschim politics had been riddled with disputes due to intra-party feuds between the two factions led by Ranjita Shrestha and her husband and party founder Reshamlal Chaudhary. While Shrestha joined the Maoist-UML alliance, Reshamlal wanted to forge an alliance with the Nepali Congress.

The Unified Socialist’s relations with other coalition partners soured when leaders from the UML and the Maoist Centre promised Shrestha that a Nagarik Unmukti member would be elected the chief minister. But the Unified Socialist foiled the coalition partners’ plan as the party joined hands with the Congress to forge a parallel alliance in the province. Later, leaders from the UML-Maoist coalition were compelled to accept Unified Socialist’s Sodari as chief minister.

Even in Kathmandu, Unified Socialist leaders including its vice-chair Rajendra Pandey have been publicly accusing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and UML chair KP Sharma Oli of undermining his party’s strength in the coalition.