In a meeting with the agitating alliance leaders who had reached Shital Niwas Monday evening to apprise him of their failed negotiations with the HLPC, President Dr Yadav pointed out the need to hold elections at the earliest. "The country cannot afford to remain without people´s representatives for long. Do forge consensus with the HLPC to join the poll and participate in it," his press advisor Rajendra Dahal quoted Dr Yadav as telling the leaders of the agitating alliance. [break]
Dr Yadav also urged the agitating parties to settle their differences by sitting for negotiations with the HLPC. CPN-Maoist Chairman Mohan Baidya, Secretary Dev Gurung and other senior leaders including Ram Bahadur Thapa had reached the president´s office.
According to Dahal, President Yadav also asked top leaders of the major parties represented in the HLPC to continue putting in maximum effort to bring the dissenting parties on board the election process. "This election is for the Constituent Assembly. Do bring all the parties on board the election process and hold the poll on the scheduled date," Dahal quoted the president as telling the leaders. The president´s suggestion came in the wake of the major parties mulling elections even without the Baidya-led alliance.
As agreed during a nine-hour all-party meeting held at Shital Niwas on Sunday to brief the president on the outcome of their talks, leaders of the HLPC and the Baidya-led alliance had separately reached the president´s office after their meeting at the HLPC secretariat in New Baneshwor failed to make any headway. The HLPC failed to forge consensus with the Baidya-led alliance as the latter continued insisting on deferral of the election date and resignation of Khil Raj Regmi from the post of chief justice.
NC Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel said they failed to reach consensus as the Baidya-led alliance continued insisting on the resignation of the chairman of the poll government from the post of CJ and deferral of the poll. "We are in favor of exercising maximum flexibility over their other demands to ensure polls on the scheduled date. The talks faltered as they showed no sign of budging from their previous stances," said Paudel.
HLPC leaders are scheduled to hold a meeting with Chairman Regmi Tuesday to inform him about their overtures to bring the Baidya-led alliance into the election and their demand for his resignation as CJ. They are also scheduled to hold discussions about poll preparations, including expediting the legal process for the poll in November.
During the negotiations on Monday, HLPC leaders offered to the Baidya alliance to expand the cabinet, form a separate mechanism to forge consensus on various contentious issues of the new statute and provide additional time for the parties affiliated with the agitating alliance to register with the election commission and file candidacies for the November poll. "The talks hit a snag over the resignation of Regmi as chief justice," CPN-Maoist Secretary Dev Gurung told media after the meeting.
Gurung said the HLPC leaders briefed us that they could not convince Regmi to step down from the post of chief justice. "The formation of the government under the chief justice has established a party-less system displacing the multi-party system. The issue we have raised is not of an individual, but of a system," he further said. Gurung added that it was practically impossible to hold the poll on the scheduled date of November 19 as they also needed time for necessary publicity work.
Prior to the meeting with the CPN-Maoist, the parties in the HLPC sat for discussions over the demand of the Baidya-led alliance to defer the poll and get Regmi to resign as CJ. The meeting decided to consider all the other demands of the Baidya-led alliance including rescheduling the poll to early December if the latter committed itself to participate in the poll.
"The HLPC failed to extract a commitment from the CPN-Maoist to participate in the election, even if it was rescheduled to late Mangsir [early December]," NC leader Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, who was present at the meeting, tweeted after the meeting.
HLPC leaders have announced they will continue holding negotiations with the Baidya alliance though they failed to arrive anywhere near consensus on Monday.
"The negotiations have not broken down yet. We have asked them to reconsider the proposals we made. But the talks have still not failed," said Dahal when asked if their overtures to bring the Baidya-led alliance into the election were now over.
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