KATHMANDU, May 26: The top brass meeting of the three major political parties--UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML--along with United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) ended inconclusively on Saturday after the parties stuck to their own stances on contentious issues of constitution writing.
At the meeting held at the prime minister´s official residence in Baluwatar, NC and UML leaders stressed on restructuring the state based on multi-ethnic identiy and economic viability and leave naming, delineating and determining the number of provincial states to the respective states themselves, NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel said after the meeting. [break]
The NC-UML leaders also optionally proposed to leave the task of naming, delineating and determining the number of states to the federal commission and the transitional parliament, Paudel said, adding that the talks then collapsed, with UCPN (Maoist) Madhesi leaders rejecting both the propositions.
On the contrary, UDMF leader Raj Kishor Yadav said the talks failed after NC and UML showed unwillingness for flexibility by not accepting the Maoist-UDMF proposal to settle the issue of federalism as recommended by the State Restructuring Commission and the CA thematic committee.
Yadav further accused UML of not being serious to the sensitivity of the situation by staying away from the top leaders´ meeting scheduled for 8 am today. "We can´t surrender just in the name of consensus," Yadav added.
Speaking to the media, Maoist Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha said it is unfortunate for all that the parties are persistently unable to reach consensus. He said NC and UML also resisted the idea of taking the disputed issues to CA full house for voting. "The situation has become critical. In this way, neither will the CA remain to exist nor will the country get a new constitution," an emotional Shrestha said.
After the meeting, NC leaders headed to Singha Durbar for its parliamentary party (PP) meeting. Paudel said NC will continue the discussion with the other political parties after its PP meeting.
With leaders struggling to forge common ground on the disputed issues at this last hour, today´s Constituent Assembly meeting, rescheduled for 5 pm, has been put off till Sunday, also when the CA´s term expires.
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