After efforts to select a consensus candidate failed, the Constituent Assembly is set to hold an election for the CA chairperson on Tuesday.

The window for consensus candidate nomination at the CA Secretariat was 1-2pm on Monday but no name was submitted for unanimous election of the Assembly leader.

Earlier, senior most lawmaker Surya Bahadur Thapa, who is the interim CA chairman, held an all-party meeting in a bid to build consensus on a lawmaker for the post but the parties did not compromise on their stance.

The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have a common candidate, and the UCPN (Maoist) has its own. So two candidates are possible—one from NC-UML and another from the Maoists and allies.

Subas Nembang, who served as the chairman of the first CA, is the common candidate of the NC and the UML while the UCPN (Maoist) and some fringe parties are likely to field Maoist leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara.

A meeting of the NC Parliamentary Party on Monday decided to support Nembang in the election, honouring its commitment to supporting the UML in a seven-point agreement reached with the party prior to Sushil Koirala’s election as the prime minister.

The Maoists have objected to the agreement on the CA chair saying that power-sharing in government and constitution-writing should not be inter-linked. The UCPN (M) said that its candidate will be decided after a meeting with fringe parties who have joined hands with the Maoists saying that all “pro-federal forces” should unite to promulgate a constitution within a year.

“We will name the candidate after consultation with some fringe parties on Tuesday evening,” said Maoist spokesman Dina Nath Sharma. “We could also vote against Nembang without registering our candidate.”

Speaking after the all-party meeting, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal said that his party, the third largest, should get to lead the CA for equilibrium in the constitution drafting process. He cited a similar arrangement in the first CA.