During a meeting wityh a delegation of NC lawmakers in Singha Durbar, Poudel said: “The Maoists are not ready to accept our leadership. And, we also do not have a situation to believe in the Maoists to be a part of the Maoist-led consensus government.” [break]
Poudel argued that this has left them with a slim chance of forming a national consensus government. He said the Maoists must fully detach themselves from their arms and combatants and implement all past agreements related to the peace process.
Following Prime Minister Madhav Nepal´s resignation on July 1, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav had given a week´s deadline to form a national government.
After failing to forge consensus in the given time, the parties in the CA on Wednesday asked Dr Yadav to extend the deadline by five more days arguing that they needed some more time to form a consensus govenrment.
In the meeting with Poudel, the NC lawmakers led by Ramesh Rijal demanded that the NC put utmost efforts to form a national consensus government to ensure successful conclusion of peace process and promulgation of new constitution on time.
Poudel told the lawmakers that Maoists were hatching conspiracies to form a UML-led majority government under Jhala Nath Khanal´s leadership if fail to garner national consensus in their favor.
During the meeting, Poudel expressed dissatisfaction at the row within the party over prime ministerial candidate. “The row over the prime ministerial candidate should not have surfaced in the party now,” he said. “If the row was to come at all, this should have happened during the election for the post of parliamentary party leader,” he added.
He said he would not have staked claim for the prime ministerial post had he not been elected the parliamentary party leader.
Poudel also asked the lawmakers to help maintain unity in the party intact. “The polarization in the party will do no good to the party at this critical juncture of time,” he said.
Talking to media persons after the meeting, Rijal said they drew attention of Poudel to remain firm on the party´s stance to form a national consensus government. “We reiterated that a national consensus government should be formed under the leadership of the Nepali Congress,” he said.
The efforts to forge consensus government should be taken ahead to accomplish the tasks of peace process and constitution drafting, he said.
The delegation led by Rijal had also met party acting president Sushil Koirala on Thursday. Rijal said they will meet party senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba and draw his attention to form consensus government.
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