Paudel, who is the NC parliamentary party leader and now the sole candidate in the ongoing prime ministerial race, put forth this view during a meeting of the 10 ruling parties held at the prime minister´s office at Singha Durbar. [break]
"The responsibility falls on the shoulders of the UML, the prime minister´s party, to seek ways to solve the looming economic crisis," Paudel told reporters after the meeting. He was not happy with the neutral stance taken by the UML in the prime ministerial race.
No CPN-UML representatives, except those in the govenment, were present at the meeting.
During the meeting officials from the Ministry of Finance apprised the leaders of the looming economic crisis in the absence of an annual budget. They told the leaders that the government would not even be able to pay civil servants and hospital staffers and feed jail inmates if the budget was not passed by the end of the Nepali month of Kartik [mid-November].
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told the leaders that the caretaker government would table the budget itself if a new government is not formed by the end of the Nepali month of Asoj [mid-Oct].
The NC and Madhes-based parties raised the issue of the political deal reached recently between the UML and the Maoists. "The small political parties told the prime minister that they would support him in passing the budget in parliament. But the NC and Madhes-based parties stated that the Maoist-UML pact has spawned doubts about the UML move and asked him to clarify," said Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) Chairman Pashupati Shumsher Rana.
The prime minister clarified that the pact only concerned withdrawal of the Maoist candidacy and a request to the NC to follow suit, nothing more, according to Raghuji Pant, the prime minister´s political advisor.
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