Jha avoids oath-taking ceremony

(Updated at 1705 NST, 1120 GMT)



KATHMANDU, Aug 30: Vice President Parmananda Jha did not attend the oath-taking ceremony scheduled at 4 p.m. at the President Office on Sunday.



The President’s Office had organized the oath-taking ceremony for which a few cabinet members including Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subas Nembang, army chief attended in anticipation of Jha´s attendance. Foreign diplomats and leaders of political parties did not attend the ceremony. [break]

• Jha refuses to take oath in Nepali


• Govt decides to administer VP´s oath on Sunday; Jha sets more conditions

The ceremony was organized as an informal meeting of cabinet members and high ranking government officials held at the prime minister´s official residence at Baluwatar on Saturday evening decided to ask Jha to attend the ceremony.



Jha organized a press conference at his office earlier in the afternoon to inform the media that he would not attend the ceremony.



PM Nepal called Jha from the venue to request for the attendance which Jha refused.



"DPM Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, TMDP chairman Mahanta Thakur and Sadbhawana Party chairman Rajendra Mahato visited Jha in the morning to request him to take oath in his mother-tongue and Nepali," PM´s political adviser Raghuji Pant said.



"The government asked the President´s Office to prepare for the ceremony in accordance with the SC decision," Pant added. "The government respects the SC verdict and it will take an appropriate action as per the law in the days to come."



Since Jha did not take the oath within the time given by the SC, he can not function as the vice president from Sunday midnight.



The move comes following Jha´s refusal to take oath in Nepali as previously agreed.



Eearlier, at a press conference Jha indicated that he would ignore the government’s decision of re-administrating his oath in Nepali language.



Jha said that he would re-think about the oath only after the parliament takes decision on the bill about oath-taking in the language of choice.



In a press release he read out during the press conference at his office, he slammed the Supreme Court for illegalizing his oath-taking in Hindi language saying that the verdict wrongly interpreted the Interim Constitution.

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