JANAKPURDHAM, Jan 19: Despite several efforts, Province 2 is still struggling to settle the row over naming the province and fixing its permanent capital. On Friday, the commission formed for recommending the name and capital of the province organized a program for collecting suggestions.
However, the participants who were divided into two groups made it challenging for the commission to reach a consensus over the name and the capital. Parliamentarians kept debating and arguing with each other during the entire program of four hours but still failed to reach to an agreement.
Though most of them seem to agree on the provincial capital, they seem to be divided over the name of the province. Parliamentarians affiliated to the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN) and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) demanded the province to be named as 'Madhes' while the representatives of Nepali Congress (NC) and Nepal Communist Party (NCP) refused to agree with it .
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Ramchandra Mandal of NCP stated that there is no meaning in forming a commission for recommending the name as it is the provincial assembly, which will be making the final decision.
"If we can't make a final decision based on the suggestions collected by the commission, what is the need of its formation?” Mandal questioned.
According to him, this issue will be less controversial if parliamentarians agree not to name the province as 'Madhes'.
"It is not suitable to name the province as 'Madhes' especially at a time when even the Madhesi parties have removed the word from the name of their parties," said Mandal.
Meanwhile, NC parliamentarians have been demanding the province to be named as 'Mithila' and Janakpur as its capital. Fortunately, the selection of the capital has remained unchallenged since the beginning.