Kathmandu. KATHMANDU: Three political parties — Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and Nepali Communist Party — are now sitting in the same bench.

The results of the election to the House of Representatives held on March 4 have fixed the parliamentary seat of the three parties in the opposition bench. Prior to this, the identity of the three major parties of the country was maintained.

All the three parties were in the same bench in the Interim Parliament formed after the establishment of democracy in 2063 BS and the then CPN (Maoist) came to the peace process. However, in the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections and subsequent parliaments, when two parties — NC, UML and Maoist — were in power, one party was usually in the opposition.

This is the first time that all three parties are sitting on the same bench. This time, the Nepali Congress will be the main opposition and the other two will be the main opposition. There will be three parties in the same opposition bench. The members of the House of Representatives took oath of office and secrecy today following the election to the House of Representatives held on March 4.

On the occasion, senior-most member Arjun Narsingh KC administered oath of office and secrecy to the newly-elected lawmakers. Lawmakers of the three parties took oath of office and secrecy from the opposition benches. The Federal Parliament Secretariat has arranged benches for the political parties to sit on the basis of the number of seats.