Over a week after the term of the local government bodies expired, their future remains uncertain, what with the Deuba government unwilling to extend their term. The constitution and the Local Government Act allow the government to extend the tenure of local bodies by one year in case elections cannot be held for any reason. Prime Minister Deuba's government wants to appoint all-party political committees to run the local bodies which until their tenure expired were dominated by the UML.

But no one else thinks this is a good idea, especially not the UML and the Election Commission. The UML claims it would be against the constitution and the Local Governance Act, and says that it suspects these committees will be used to install Congress cadres in the districts in order to manipulate the parliamentary elections in November. The party has also stated that government appointees and political nominees are not empowered by the people to run local bodies, and that the term of the local bodies should be extended, or local elections should be held. The UML and other political parties say that the government is playing right into the hands of the Maoists, who have been trying to displace locally-elected representatives and establish their own government at the local level. In all, 3,913 VDCs, 75 DDCs, and 58 municipalities are now virtually non-functional.