Kathmandu, Jan. 31 -- The scheduled March 5 election is just over a month away and the results will be out within the next fortnight. However, it remains unclear whether the Parliament building will be ready in time for lawmakers to take oath.

The Gallery Baithak on the Singha Durbar premises housed the country's Parliament from the time of the first parliamentary elections in 1959 until the reinstatement of the House in 2006. The House that was reinstated after the second people's movement, which saw the rebel Maoists represented for the first time, also functioned from the same building.

However, a significant rise in the number of representatives in the Constituent Assembly in 2008, to 601, left the Gallery Baithak short of space. As...