“It will be too early to look for the replacement of the Khil Raj Regmi-led government. It is unfortunate that the very political parties who agreed to the 11-point and the 25-point deals have started talking about seeking Regmi’s alternative,” Dahal said while speaking to a team of journalists. [break]
The new election date will be announced on Wednesday with view to holding the elections in November, revealed Dahal, adding that an agreement to that effect was made during his meeting with Chairman of Interim Election Council of Ministers Regmi earlier in the morning.
“The government is serious about declaring the poll date,” Dahal said. “After settling contentious issues at the High Level Political Committee (HLPC) meeting on Wednesday morning, the poll date will be announced later on the occasion of the Republic Day, which also happens to fall on the same day.”
He further said it is only for the sake of fringe parties that his party has been standing against keeping the provision of the proposed 10 per cent proportional representation (PR) threshold. “Our party has no objection over the idea of 10 per cent PR threshold. We opposed it because we want fringe parties to have their representation in Constituent Assembly. Nowhere in the world has been such threshold provision practiced except in Bolivia.”
Dahal also made it clear that his party has not backtracked on the agreement regarding the number of CA seats. “We have only maintained that we reconsider the deal considering the protest by majority of political parties. But we are ready to be flexible even now if that would ease the holding of new elections.”
In another context, Dahal said his party has done enough to rope the CPN-Maoist into the HLPC. According to him, he had talked to CPN-Maoist Chairman Mohan Baidya over phone several times in that regard. Claiming that his deputies Baburam Bhattarai and Narayankaji Shrestha have met Baidya in person and discussed the issue, Dahal said he would convince Baidya to join the HLPC after personally meeting him soon.
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