The agitating alliance that earlier snubbed two consecutive invitations for talks with the HLPC, put forth the demand to postpone the Constituent Assembly (CA) poll as part of 18 various demands it made to the HLPC, Tuesday. The poll was announced as per the 25-point ordinance for removing constitutional difficulties.
The 33-party alliance maintained that since their talks with the HLPC for reaching consensus had already started, all the activities of the EC, including its calendar of events for the November 19 poll and the activities of the Election Constituency Delineation Commission, should be put off and the election-related arrangements introduced as per the 25-point presidential ordinance annulled. [break]
The alliance has demanded that the 25-point ordinance endorsed by the president be scrapped, the HLPC dissolved, an all-party roundtable organized, a national consensus government of political parties formed, a fully proportional electoral system adopted for CA polls and the recent amendment to the Citizenship Act annulled, as it was aimed at providing citizenship to ´illegal immigrants´.
Talking to media after the meeting held at the International Convention Center at New Baneshwor, CPN-Maoist Chairman Mohan Baidya said their talks with the HLPC were positive as they were invited without any preconditions. "We did not discuss much today [Tuesday]. This was just a beginning. We will sit together again soon to reach a consensus," he said.
Baidya urged the four major parties in the HLPC to give special focus to forging consensus with other political parties and bail the country out of the current transition."We have said that the new constitution should address the demands and aspirations of all groups, including the marginalized and the backward," he said.
Leaders present at the meeting said the talks between the agitating alliance and the HLPC could not make headway as HLPC coordinator Pushpa Kamal Dahal said categorically that there was no possibility of scrapping the 25-point ordinance endorsed by the president, deferring the November 19 election or putting off the ongoing electoral process.
Mohan Baidya, speaking on behalf of the alliance, reacted immediately to Dahal´s remarks and said such conditions set by the HLPC were tantamount to closing the door for any futuare consensus, according to Mani Thapa, general secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Nepal (RCPN). RCPN is one of the constituent parties of the Baidya-led alliance.
Dahal, however, assured the alliance that as coordinator of the HLPC he would put forth their demands at the next HLPC meeting. "Since talks are a matter of give and take, let´s sit down next time with maximum flexibility in our respective stances to reach consensus for elections,” Thapa quoted Dahal as saying after hearing the demands of the alliance.
The next meeting of the HLPC is scheduled to prepare the bottom line for consensus before sitting for another round of talks with the Baidya-led alliance.
In their 18-point demand, the Baidya-led alliance has also demanded a review of the failure of the erstwhile CA and preparing of concrete grounds for ensuring the promulgating of a statue through the new CA before going to polls. It has also called for the focusing of discussions among the parties on the contentious issues of the past CA in order to forge consensus on those issues, the public disclosure of the status of disappeared citizens, free of cost treatment to those injured during the people´s movement, and addressing the demands of disqualified PLA combatants and conflict-affected army and police personnel and members of the general public.
Interestingly, the Baidya-led alliance, which has been a vocal critic of India for what it says was its backdoor engineering to form the Regmi-led poll government, has also demanded the scrapping of all decisions taken by the Regmi government that are against national sovereignty and against the interests of ordinary people, and also the scrapping of all unequal treaties signed on various occasions between Nepal and India.
Six demands by Yadav-led FDF
In overtures to bring the agitating parties on board the election process, the HLPC also held a meeting with the agitating Federal Democratic Front (FDF) that includes the Upendra Yadav-led Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Nepal (MPRF-N) among its eight constituent parties.
During the meeting, the FDF put forth six demands as preconditions for going to polls. The demands include dissolution of the HLPC, resignation of Khil Raj Regmi, who heads the poll government, from the post of chief justice, delineation of election constituencies based on the population figures shown by the latest census of 2011, additional time for voter registration with photo and biometrics, and maintaining intact the 58:42 ratio between the proportional electoral and first-past-the-post systems of the erstwhile CA.
Though the FDF sat for talks with the HLPC previously also, there was no consensus on its demands. "We had expected that the HLPC would do the necessary homework to address our demands. But we did not find any such thing on their part," Yadav told media after the meeting.
CPN-UML leader Raghuji Panta, who was present at the HLPC meeting, said they listened to the demands of all agitating parties. "We will discuss all their demands at the HLPC meeting and sit for another round of talks soon to address the demands," he said.
The HLPC is scheduled to hold talks again with the agitating parties within the next few days.
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