KATHMANDU, May 30: In a dramatic shift in their positions, politicians from three major parties have now stressed giving priority to making new constitution through a fast-track process while keeping the ongoing debate on forming a national unity government on the back burner for now.
A meeting of Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and top politicians from Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) on Friday evening, decided to concentrate their efforts into finalizing of the new constitution in time before pursuing the agenda of forming a national unity government, said leaders privy to the development.
UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal floated a clear proposal on settling the contentious issues of the new constitution prior to the next meeting of the Constituent Assembly (CA), scheduled for Sunday. "National unity government should be formed only after the promulgation of the new constitution. We shouldn't deviate from this course," Dahal's personal secretary Chudamani Khadka quoted him as saying at the inter-party meeting held at the prime minister's officical residence at Baluwatar on Friday.
Dahal also proposed that the parties should become ready even to suspend some of the provisions of the CA regulations if required for delivering new constitution through a fast-track procedures.
Leaders close to Dahal said that he came up with the latest position as most of the party leaders in his camp have of late pressed him not to support the idea of forming national unity government under the leadership of CPN-UML KP Sharma Oli before promulgating new constitution.
Meanwhile, a meeting of office bearers of the NC on Friday morning decided to put all its energies into making new constitution and promulgating it in time and not to deviate from this mission at any cost.
The NC's top body also decided to give continuity to the CA's meeting and to forward the contents of the new constitution to the CA's drafting committee and to make all efforts to settle the unresolved issues through consensus.
"The meeting has decided to show flexibility over the number of provinces ranging from six to eight in the to-be-adopted federal system," said Chiranjivi Adhikari, personal secretary of NC Vice-chair Ramchandra Paudel.
Priority right now not government change but progress on key is...
