Dahal, who leads the 30-party opposition alliance, further said that the number of provinces could be finalized in line with the public response to the two proposals. Talking to a few journalists at his residence at Lazimpat on Friday, Dahal said that the constitution should not be promulgated without finalizing the major disputes over state-structuring."Placing the issue of state-restructuring on hold is unacceptable to us, but we are ready for any give and take for settling matters," he said. "Let's put both the 7-province and 10-province models in the draft constitution and allow the people to debate them."
The UCPN (Maoist) idea comes amidst the chairman of the Constituent Assembly (CA) setting an April 30 deadline for finalizing the contentions over the new statue. While the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are pushing for forwarding the agreed-upon issues to the Drafting Committee of the CA, Dahal has clarified that his party is not ready for this option. Asked about the Maoist response to the CA chairman's deadline, Dahal warned of grave consequences if the CA pushed ahead with a majority-based process.
"We had said that if there is agreement on state-structuring we would agree to letting the other issues to be forwarded for drafting the constitution, registering our reservations on form of governance," he said. "But it's unacceptable to us to forward these issues without forging agreement on federalism also." Dahal also refuted media reports about the parties agreeing on the major contentious issues.
The Maoist chief also informed that he had already pushed the 30-party alliance toward flexibility on various options over federalism in a bid to finalize the contentions in consensus. He said anyone disagreeing is free to leave the alliance. Stating that UML chief KP Oli has been stressing the need for a commission to decide the contentions over state-structuring, Dahal further reiterated that his party was not ready for this. However, he said a commission could be formed to finalize minor disputes over delineation and the placement of districts and certain territories.
Refuting allegations about his obstructing the consensus process, Dahal claimed that some forces were trying to defame him, blaming him for every issue in contention despite his earnest efforts. "If I could have a key role in forging consensus I would settle the disputes within two hours," he said.
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