Damakant Jayshi
The Hindu
January 21, 2015
Opposition parties continued their protests on Tuesday inside the Constituent Assembly (CA) as well outside to prevent the ruling parties from adopting the procedure to discuss the new Constitution.
The nation wide bandh (general strike) called by the alliance of Opposition parties led by UCPN (Maoist) turned violent in several parts of the country while their MPs shouted slogans inside the Assembly to prevent CA Chairman Subas Nembang from entering the process of voting.
Mr. Nembang adjourned the CA meeting until 11 a.m. on Wednesday after nearly two hours of slogan-shouting by Opposition lawmakers. In the wee hour of Tuesday, they attacked some UML leaders, and CA chairman, forcing another adjournment.
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala termed Tuesday’s attack inside the CA as “conspiracy” to prevent the CA from writing the Constitution. “It did not turn nastier due to patience exercised by the ruling parties,” he said. “The UCPN (Maoist) leaders are expert at changing their words.”
The deadline to promulgate the new statute which the parties set themselves is just two days away. Leaders from the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the UCPN (Maoist) have been saying that the Constitution would be passed once they reached consensus. In that event, the likely step would be to suspend all regulations and processes and adopt the draft of the Constitution to be promulgated at a later date.
With the parties failing to reach consensus or agreeing on a compromise despite many rounds of bilateral and multi-party discussions, the deadline of January 22 is likely to be missed, several leaders from various political parties have been saying.
State restructuring has appeared to be the most difficult issue. The NC and the UML want no more than six or seven States and mostly drawn on the bases of economic viability, geography and culture. They also want the names of the new States to be decided by elected state assemblies.
The UCPN (Maoist) and Madhes-based parties want between eight and 10 States, one, or at the most two, States in Tarai and are in favour of the states being carved and named mainly on single ethnic identity.
With discussions yielding no result, the NC and the UML suggested that the disputes be decided by adopting the CA procedure which the parties — including the UCPN (Maoist) and Madhes-based ones — had agreed to in March last year. The ruling parties have more than the required two-thirds majority to get the Constitution passed if voting is adopted. The Opposition has insisted on “consensus only” approach.
Meanwhile, responding to the situation in Nepal, Spokesperson of from Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said, “It is our expectation that all Nepalese leaders will work together in the final stage of the peace process, in drawing up a Constitution that honours past agreements and understandings as well as the mandate of the CA elections.”
