A Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting of the NC scheduled for Monday will make a call to other political parties in the Constituent Assembly (CA) to bring the amendment in the provision of the Interim Constitution that makes it mandatory for parties to hold convention within five years. The NC has maintained that it is practically impossible to hold the convention in September given the need to focus on statute drafting process.
Although we have put a provision to extend six months in exceptional circumstances to hold general convention, NC is set to be in trouble if the new statute is not promulgated on time.
"We will take appropriate decision if other parties give a nod to amend the Interim Constitution. An agreement to amend the provision on general convention in the Interim Constitution will pave us a way to hold the convention by March," said NC Spokesperson Dilendra Prasad Badu.
CPN-UML Vice Chairman Bhim Rawal said there was an informal discussion between the NC and UML on the issue of bringing amendment in the interim statute to extend six months time for holding general convention a few days ago. "We have decided to hold discussion on the issue in the four-party meeting," he said.
The NC, the largest political party in the Constituent Assembly (CA), had held its 12th general convention on September 17-21, 2010. Although the party is supposed to hold a general convention every four years, the party statute allows for its deferring for a year at the most in some exceptional cases.
NC had last year decided to defer the convention for September 10-14, 2015 considering the need to focus on constitution making process. An emergency meeting of the NC Central Working Committee (CWC) on August 2 had rescheduled the general convention for September 19-22.
In the amended calendar of events, the NC CWC had decided to hold the party's village and municipal convention by September 3 and the regional convention on September 8. Likewise, the meeting decided to hold district-level convention of the party on September 11. NC's CWC meeting on Tuesday is likely to defer the village-level convention scheduled to begin from Thursday.
NC Spokesperson Badu said a provision in the new constitution allows political parties to hold their general convention in five and half years if there exists some exceptional circumstance.
"But we are not sure whether we will be able to promulgate new statute before September 19 since the agitating political parties are yet to positively respond to the government's call for talks," Badu further said.
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