KATHMANDU: A section of politicians and lawyers have been claiming that if Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai resigns from his office, the country may face further crisis in forming new government. Seeking his alternative is not easy, but the opposition parties have been demanding Bhattarai’s oust from power and a new process to choose new government.

The continuation of the present deadlock will further devastate the country’s political, constitutional and economic development. This may regress the people decades back in developmental perspectives. As the government has already expressed its failure to hold the

elections of the Constituent Assembly (CA) on November 22 as stipulated, questions on the significance of the Bhattarai-led government have been raised, as doubts have surfaced that he announced the poll date only to give legitimacy to his regime.

Though parties could not agree upon a PM candidate or alternative way out, Bhattarai has been moving ahead with his strategy to rule the nation through ordinances. In general, PM does not need to be concerned about the alternative before resigning, as the constitutional course will definitely come up with it. The PM’s post is deemed to be vacant if he tenders his resignation to president, if no-confidence motion is passed by two-third majority of lawmakers in existence of parliament, if his membership to legislature-parliament ceases or he dies as per Article 38 (7) of the Interim Constitution (IC).

Since Bhattarai himself is not ready to resign, there are no constitutional alternatives to remove him and begin the process to form

a new government. Bhattarai’s ouster might help him from becoming more unpopular, but it is unclear what the next step would

be. The formation of a consensus government from president is the only way out, but requires support from Bhattarai’s party.

As political parties could not give their consensus candidate of new PM and spent two months use-lessly, the next political step is still uncertain. The only option is to form consensus government as per Article 38 of the constitution. The most important factors to replace Bhattarai are to guarantee alter-native government, political support to the new government and cons-titutional basis of the same. Again, forming consensus government as per Article 38 by the president is the only way out since there is no parliament to select a new PM.

“Before quitting, there must be the guarantee of an alternative to the present government, the legitimacy of such government and the cons-titutional provision to support such government,” Constitutional Law Expert Purnaman Shakya told THT Perspectives. “Since the IC clearly requires consensus among the political parties, Bhattarai’s alternative is still uncertain,” Shakya added.