Indira Rana Magar elected House of Representatives deputy speaker

Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) lawmaker Indira Rana Magar has has been elected new deputy speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR).

The ruling coalition – that includes CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) besides the RSP – candidate Rana Magar has been elected deputy speaker with 166 votes today. She has defeated Mukta Kumari Yadav of Nepali Congress (NC). Out of 275 members of the House of Representatives, 264 participated in the election. One needs to secure the support of 138 members in the 275-strong lower house to be elected. As many as 97 lawmakers stood against Magar, while Prem Suwal of the Majdoor Kishan Party stood neutral.

Magar and Yadav filed their candidacy for the position of deputy speaker in the House of Representatives yesterday. NC’s Yadav was supported by the CPN-Unified Socialist and the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party Nepal besides the NC.

Newly elected Speaker Debraj Ghimire first presented Rana's candidacy in the assembly for decision. During the division of votes, as the majority of MPs were in favor of Rana, the candidacy of Congress MP Muktakumari, who was her rival, did not have to be presented for decision.

The 52-year-old Rana Magar, who is from Jhapa, became an HoR member from RSP through the proportional representation (PR) electoral system. 

Actively involved in social work and child rights before entering politics, she is the founding chairperson of Prisoners Assistance Nepal, a non-profit organisation that looks after children whose parents are in prison.

A resident of Salbadi from Arjundhara-11 in Jhapa, Rana Magar, has two schools and 10 childcare centres under her guardianship. In the centres, as many as 2,000 children of inmates from Jhapa to Palpa district are getting care and education at her initiative.

Born to father Pratap Ranamagar and mother Manmaya Ranamagar as the youngest child in 2027 BS, she began taking care of the inmates’ children by renting two rooms in Kathmandu 22 years ago.

Rana Magar is also listed on BBC 100 Women. In 2005, Rana Magar also got the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship, and the ‘Asia People’s Service’ award in 2009. She has received Asia 21 Young Leader Public Service Award in 2009 and World Children’s Honourary Award in 2014 for her social work. She was featured in BBC’s 100 Women List in 2017.

The third largest party in the ruling coalition RSP got the post of deputy speaker and the largest CPN-UML the speaker according to the agreement of the coalition. CPN-UML lawmaker Dev Raj Ghimire was elected speaker on Thursday defeating Ishwari Neupane of NC.

The Constitution makes it mandatory to elect a Speaker and a deputy Speaker within 15 days of the House’s first meeting.

According to the Article 91 (2) of the Statute, either the Speaker or the deputy Speaker must be a woman and from different parties, preferably form government and opposition. However, the ruling alliance has divided Speaker and deputy Speaker among themselves.

Rana, after being elected, claimed to work on strengthen the federalism, though her party openly has criticized the federalism, and asked to scrap the Province as according to them Province has become liability.

The deputy Speaker, according to her, is inspired by renowned litterateur Parijat, who was her guide and guardian, when Rana Magar moved to Kathmandu for study. She did her schooling by getting enrolled at Grade 5 at the age of 12 in a local Maharanigunj Primary School, Arjundhara, according to her elder brother Jagat Ranamagar.

She holds a MA degree in Sociology and has a daughter.

According to the Parliamentary Secretariat, except the single party Panchayat Rule of 30 years, Rana Magar is the 12th deputy Speaker and seventh women deputy Speaker in the parliamentary history of Nepal. The first deputy Speaker was Mahendra Narayan Nidhi of NC (March 31, 1960), who could enjoy his tenure till December 15, 1960 as then King Mahendra dissolved the House and arrested the democratically elected government led by NC president BP Koirala.

After the democratic movement of 1990 that reestablished the multiparty democracy, Mahanta Thakur – then NC now Loktantrik Samaajbadi Party – became the deputy Speaker on June 23, 1991 to December 17, 1994. From December 18, 1994 Ram Bilas Yadav from Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) became deputy Speaker till October 13, 1997.

The first women deputy Speaker of the House was Lila Shrestha Subbha from CPN-UML. Due to intra-party feud in CPN-UML, her party asked her to resign and she resigned on October 10, 1998. 

Bhoj Raj Joshi from the CPN-ML – a splinter party of CPN-UML – became deputy Speaker of the House on October 14, 1998, after the resignation of Lila Shrestha Subba. Joshi – now CPN-UML leader – remained deputy Speaker till March 23, 1999.

The second women deputy Speaker of the House Chitralekha Yadav was elected deputy Speaker of the House on June 29, 1999. He is the longest serving deputy Speaker of the House due to political upheaval. She remained deputy Speaker till January 17, 2007. During her tenure as the deputy Speaker, the country witnessed direct rule of the King Gyanendra.

But after the CPN-Maoist – now Maoist-Centre – came to main stream politics, they won majority in the House and the House saw Purna Kumari Subedi was elected the deputy Speaker on November 28, 2008. Her tenure was till November 19, 2013. After Subedi of CPN-Maoist, Onsari Gharti, of the same party, became deputy Speaker of the House on February 26, 2014. Her tenure remained till October 14, 2015. Later Gharti also became the Speaker of the House.

From October 15, 2015, Ganga Prasad Yadav of RPP became the deputy Speaker of the House till October 15, 2017. Then Dr Shiva Maya Tumbahamfe of unified CPN (CPN) remained deputy Speaker till January 20, 2020. From July 15, 2022, Puspa Bhusal of NC became deputy Speaker till September 17, 2022.

On January 20, 2023, today, Indira Rana Magar of RSP elected deputy Speaker of the House. RSP – the fourth largest party in the House – according to power sharing agreement among the ruling alliance, was planning to field lawmaker Sovita Gautam, who has defeated the former Speaker of the House Onsari Gharti in Kathmandu-2, but all of a sudden proposed Rana Magar, who has become HR member under Proportional representation (PR) electoral system – at the last moment.