Bagmati province newly-appointed Chief Minister Shalikram Jamkattel is set to seek a vote of confidence from the provincial assembly on January 17.

According to Jagannath Thapaliya, Minister for Economic Affairs and Planning, also the Spokesperson for the Provincial Assembly, Chief Minister Jamkattel has written to the Provincial Assembly Secretariat asking the latter to make necessary arrangements for the vote of confidence.

Jamkattel was appointed as the chief minister by province head Yadav Chandra Sharma on Tuesday after he laid claim to the post with the support of 70 members of the 110-seat provincial assembly.

Jamkattel has the support of CPN-UML’s 27 lawmakers, the CPN (Maoist Centre)’s 21 lawmakers, 13 lawmakers of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, seven of the CPN (Unified Socialist) and two lawmakers of the Hamro Nepali Party.

Jamkattel is the fourth chief minister of the Province since the formation of the provincial governments in 2017. Despite having more seats in the previous provincial assembly, Maoist Centre had supported CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Rajendra Pande as the chief minister during the previous term.

UML’s Dormani Poudel was the first chief minister of the province after the 2017 federal and provincial polls and then another UML leader Asta Laxmi Shakya took charge for a brief period before Unified Socialist’s Pande took over the helm following the split in the then Nepal Communist Party.