"Several proposals about the program of agitations and their nature have been floated and these will be finalized at a meeting of over a dozen opposition parties tomorrow (Thursday)," CPN-UML Politburo Member Raghuji Pant told reporters after the meeting. [break]
Leaders of the Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and National Madhes Socialist Party led by Sharat Singh Bhandari attended the meeting at the UML head office at Balkhu, Wednesday.
According to him, the leaders proposed several forms of protest, such as sit-in, boycotting each and every function to be attended by the prime minister and ministers and greeting them with black flags wherever they go.
NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel said they held broad discussions about the nature of the agitation programs but reached no conclusions. "We will finalize the protest programs at the next meeting, to be attended by over a dozen political parties," explained Paudel. He said the protests will be broadly peaceful in nature.
The leaders also decided to form a taskforce with a mandate to plan in detail a program of protests.
They plan to launch phase-wise protests. First, they will introduce protests for the period before the Dashain festival, then for the days between Dashain and Tihar, and then other programs for after Tihar.
Political parties ranging from the right such as RPP to hardline Maoists led by Mohan Baidya and the Madhes-based party led by Bhandari have joined the agitations led by the opposition NC and CPN-UML.
The opposition parties have been insisting that Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai step down to pave the way for the formation of a national consensus government, accusing him of having no grounds for remaining in office as he unilaterally announced fresh elections for the Constituent Assembly (CA) and then failed to conduct those polls.
But the ruling parties have been arguing that they cannot leave things in a void and they would quit office as soon as the parties reach a consensus on formation of a national consensus government and its leadership.
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