KATHMANDU, June 26: Chairman of the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party, Mahanta Thakur met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba this Saturday. Before this, Thakur has had similar meetings with Deuba several times.
Thakur was accompanied by the party’s leader and MP Laxman Lal Karna during his visit to the Prime Minister. Karna said that they met Deuba to address the demands forwarded by their party members. “The Prime Minister has said that he will introduce a citizenship bill in the ongoing session. He says that the responsibility to present the bill has been given to the Minister for Law,” Karna said. “The Prime Minister said that the Home Secretary has been instructed to do the necessary homework on this issue,” he added.
Robbery at Mahanta Thakur's house
During a meeting held on May 7, Thakur handed over an 11-point memorandum to Deuba. The first point of the memorandum was regarding providing citizenship. The memorandum had demanded the immediate issuance of citizenship certificates to the children of naturalized citizens as per the constitution and the continuation of the existing legal system regarding marital adoption.
The memorandum has also appealed for a population-based representation in the local bodies, provincial and federal parliaments and the implementation of the principle of equitable budget distribution based on population density by all the three levels of government.
Similarly, several other demands such as the release of Resham Chaudhary, the dismissal of the false allegations made during the Madhes movement, the implementation of agreements made with the Madhesi Front in the past, the prioritization of landless Madhesis, Tharus, indigenous communities, Dalits and Muslim communities during programs relating to land distribution and providing land ownership certificates to those that had not yet received it.
Besides these, the party has also pressed that the report of the Red Commission should be made public and that inflation and the black market should be controlled. The party has, this time too, raised the issue of amending the constitution. The issue remains an old demand of the party.
