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Shirish B Pradhan in Kathmandu
Nepali Congress on Thursday suspended Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba from the ordinary membership of the party.
"The party's disciplinary committee has suspended Mr Deuba from ordinary membership for his decision to extend the emergency rule by six months and dissolving Parliament without consulting the party," Nepali Congress spokesperson K C Arjun Narsingh told reporters at the central party office in Kathmandu
The party has sent a letter asking the prime minister to submit his clarification within three days.
"If the disciplinary committee does not find the explanation given by the prime minister satisfactory, he can be suspended up to three years or expelled from the party's ordinary membership," the spokesperson said.
This was the second time that the party has taken disciplinary action against any sitting prime minister in the parliamentary history of Nepal.
In 1961, former president of Nepali Congress B P Koirala expelled his eldest brother, then prime minister Matrika Prasad Koirala, from the party's ordinary membership.
Nepali Congress spokesperson said the party was considering the idea of appealing to the Supreme Court against the prerogative exercised by Deuba to dissolve the House of Representatives on Wednesday night.
In 1995, when Manmohan Adhikari was the prime minister of the minority government of Nepal Communist Party, Deuba filed a case against his move to dissolve Parliament and the Supreme Court in a historic verdict had reinstated Parliament.
The Supreme Court said the prime minister cannot dissolve Parliament so long as there is the possibility of forming an alternative government from within Parliament.
Nepali Congress Party president Girija Prasad Koirala has in a statement asked all the members of the Deuba Cabinet to tender their resignations within three days saying that the recent actions of the prime minister were against the party's decision.
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