Maoist chief whip Post Bahadur Bogati and NC chief whip Laxman Ghimire made the request at a meeting with the speaker at the latter´s office in Singha Durbar Sunday.[break]
“We have requested the speaker to call the parliament session within a week,” Ghimire said after the meeting. “The speaker is positive.”
The request came at the time when Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has said the government would summon the session after major political parties reach an understanding on resolving various outstanding issues.
Leaders involved in talks, however, said inter-party talks may be delayed until mid-December if the issues are not settled within the next few days as some of the top party leaders will be busy in foreign trips until mid-December.
There was an expectation that leaders will intensify talks after a gap of 10 days allocated for the Maoist plenum.
Prime Minister Nepal is scheduled to leave for Cambodia Tuesday to attend the International Conference of Asian Political Parties that is being convened for four days starting December 1. UML leader K P Sharma Oli is also scheduled to visit the same international convention.
Leaders involved in talks said inter-party talks may be delayed until mid-December if the issues are not settled within the next few days as some of the top party leaders will be busy in foreign trips until mid-December.
The prime minister will go to Brussels directly from Cambodia. While en route to Brussels, he will spend one night in Bangkok. After attending a two-day gathering on European Development Days in Brussels starting December 7, he will return home on December 9.
Soon after the prime minister´s return home, UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal will fly to Johannesburg to attend an international conference of the leftist political parties from across the world that will take place in the second week of December.
Also, leaders from three major parties including Dr Baburam Bhattarai of UCPN (Maoist), Bimalendra Nidhi and Dr Shekhar Koirala of Nepali Congress, and Ishwar Pokharel and Pradip Gyawali of UML, are invited to attend a seminar in Sweden. The event to be organized by International IDEA on constitution-writing will start from December 4.
Speaker Nembang emphasizes on the need of intensifying talks among the major political parties.
"I hope leaders will stay in the capital itself and I am fully confident that they will concentrate their efforts on reaching an understanding in resolving various issues shortly," Nembang said.
Elect me PM unopposed: Paudel
NC parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Paudel at a meeting with Nembang demanded that the speaker declare the former elected unopposed for the post of prime minister.
"As a lone candidate in the ongoing prime ministerial election in parliament, we demanded that the speaker should declare Paudel elected unopposed for the post," NC chief whip Ghimire told reporters after the meeting. Ghimire accompanied Paudel during the meeting.
However, Maoist and UML leaders have claimed that Paudel´s candidacy has already been cancelled with the end of parliament session.
The government had prorogued the parliament session on November 19 and subsequently introduced annual budget through ordinance.
The speaker has urged the government to endorse the ordinance from a parliament meeting at the earliest.
The last session of parliament failed to elect new PM despite 16 rounds of voting held in parliament.
President Dr Ram Baran Yadav prorogued the session upon the recommendation of the government following a scuffle at a parliament meeting that took place after Maoist lawmakers snatched the briefcase and budget booklet from Finance Minister Surendra Pandey while he was heading to the rostrum to present the annual budget.
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