Constitutional Committee (CC), the main panel in the Constituent Assembly, is set to elect its chairperson on Friday with the parties failing to agree on a consensus candidate.

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 Nilambar Archarya	 Narayan Kaji Shrestha

Maoist vice chairman and CA member Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Nilambar Archarya of Nepali Congress filed their candidacy for the CC head Thursday.

The Maoist party decided to field Shrestha for the CC chair after its last ditch efforts to garner support from other parties for vice chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai remained fruitless. Sources said Bhattarai refused to contest anticipating the clear possibility of losing the election.

Earlier today, a meeting of senior leaders of the three main parties - Unified CPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and UML - organised to find consensus on the CC chair was inconclusive.

Meanwhile, at least 20 parties in the ruling 22-party coalition including all major constituents have pledged their support for NC candidate Acharya.

Acharya, known as leftist thinker for a long time, was nominated by the NC as CA member under the proportional representation system. nepalnews.com