Leaders of Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, UCPN (Maoist) and the Madhesi People's Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) have also decided to bar lawmakers from filing individual amendments, sensing that such moves may push the bill endorsement process itself into trouble.
The party leaders took the decision at a meeting of key leaders of the four major political parties held at Singha Durbar on Friday. The deadline for registering amendments to the constitution bill is Saturday.
"The amendment proposals should be registered only after making sure that these will secure at least a two-thirds vote in the CA. If leaders from the three major parties file separate amendments, the constitution bill will not get endorsed," NC General Secretary Krishna Sitaula said while emerging from the meeting. "We have decided to register proposals only in consensus among the major parties as we realize that registering separate amendments may push the whole process into crisis."
After concluding the meeting at Singha Durbar, the leaders went to the prime minister's official residence at Baluwatar to join the next meeting of four political parties attended by top leaders including the prime minister and the four party chiefs. The meeting subsequently tasked a team of leaders including NC's Ram Chandra Paudel, CPN-UML's Bhim Rawal, Narayankaji Shrestha of UCPN (Maoist) and Jitendra Dev of MPRF-D to look into the matter in detail and come up with some suggestions at the next meeting on Saturday.
Sitaula said that the way lawmakers from various political parties have come up with several amendments to various articles may definitely create problems.
"This may eventually prove us to be political forces that can't even institutionalize political changes," said Situala.
NC Vice-president Paudel said the parties are for forming some commissions to address the genuine demands of the disgruntled groups.
"Just like the women's and dalit commissions, we will propose some separate commissions on indigenous communities, Madhesis, Muslims and Tharus," said Paudel.
MPRF Chairman Bijaya Gachchhadar has, however, repeatedly threatened the leaders from the other three parties that he will boycott the CA proceedings if his party's demands aren't addressed through the amendments to the constitution bill.
While the deadline for registering the amendments expires on Saturday, the leaders still seem to be in a fix over how to address the demands of the agitating parties.
Top officials at the CA secretariat, meanwhile, rule out any possibility of extending the deadline.
CA Chairman Subas Nembang said that once the amendment proposals are registered at the secretariat, the CA will conduct article-wise deliberations and conduct voting on them.
As per the existing provisions, the full CA will endorse each and every article of the new constitution through voice votes. At this stage, the CA chairman will have to conduct a vote division only if 10 percent of the lawmakers so demand.
At the next stage, the entire constitution bill will be endorsed at one go by a proper division of votes with the lawmakers' signatures.
A two-thirds vote of lawmakers present at the meeting attended by at least two-thirds of the total effective membership of the CA at the time will be required to endorse an article of the constitution bill.
However, a two-thirds vote of the total effective membership of the CA is mandatory for endorsing the constitution bill at one go.
Lawmakers registering an amendment should be able to secure a two-thirds majority to get it included in the constitution bill in place of a provision previously included. Otherwise, the provision endorsed by voice vote remains included in the constitution bill.
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