Rubi Kumari Thakur, At 26, Elected Nepal’s Youngest Deputy Speaker

KATHMANDU- Rubi Kumari Thakur, 26, was elected Deputy Speaker of Nepal’s House of Representatives on April 10, becoming the youngest person to hold the position.

A lawmaker elected through the proportional representation system from the Shram Sanskriti Party, Thakur secured the post with the backing of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and other parties.

Out of 256 lawmakers present in the House, Thakur secured 229 votes, while her rival Saraswati Lama from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party received five votes. A total of 22 lawmakers abstained.

As per Nepal’s Constitution, either the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker must be a woman, and the two positions must be held by members of different political parties.

On April 4, Dol Prasad Aryal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives as the sole nominee for the post.

Thakur, born in 2000 in Mujeliya, Dhanusha district, comes from a modest background. Her father, Sogarath Thakur, is a migrant laborer in Saudi Arabia, and she is one of six siblings. She completed her Secondary Education Examination and pursued a diploma in civil engineering from Balara Polytechnic, later working briefly at an architecture consultancy firm.

Her entry into politics was influenced by Hark Sampang, founder of the Shram Shakti Party, and she was nominated as a proportional representation candidate for the March 5 elections. (IANS)