POKHARA, June 29: Agitating ward chairs in Pokhara Metropolitan City have withdrawn their protest from Friday after the mayor of the city during talks with them assured them of including missing projects.

The agitating ward representatives agreed to withdraw their protests after Mayor Man Bahadur GC himself reached out to them and offered to resolve the matter through talks.

“The protests ended after the mayor agreed to include some projects that were earlier left out in the budget,” Raja Ram Lamichhane, ward chairperson of Pokhara Metropolitan City-9 said. “We demanded that some of the projects that were left out be included in the budget and the mayor has responded positively.”

Among the 33 wards in the metropolitan city Nepali Congress (NC) won in 11 wards while Mayor GC and other representatives are from the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP). The Nepali Congress-affiliated ward chairmen and others had padlocked the gate of the metropolitan city office on Thursday and staged a sit-in alleging that more funds were allocated to some wards in the budget ‘to influence the upcoming by-elections’ in parliamentary constituency 2 of Kaski. They had also demanded more funds for their wards. 

Lamichhane said Mayor GC has asked the protesting ward chairs to provide him the list of projects that they want to include in the budget so that he could amend the budget through the Metropolitan Council. 

At a press meet held Friday morning before the talks, Mayor GC claimed that all wards were provided budget proportionately. 

Construction of a filtration pond in the Fewa Lake, widening the Tal Chowk road section to four lanes, and a new glass bridge over the Seti River gorge are among some of the major plans announced in the budget unveiled earlier this week. 

 
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