Nepal PM meets leaders to decide on constitution drafting

EOI, Kathmandu, 31 Oct 2014: Prime Minister Sushil Koirala has held a meeting with top leaders of major political parties to develop common views on key contentious issues in the constitution-drafting of the country, according to a PTI report from Kathmandu on Thursday.

Koirala met CPN-UML chairman KP Sharma Oli, UCPN-Maoist chief Prachanda and Nepali Congress vice-president Ramchandra Poudyal to sort out differences in the drafting of Constitution. They have so far has failed to forge consensus on the contentious issues of the Constitution drafting.

As the extended deadline of resolving contentious issues of the new constitution is expiring on November 1, the three major parties are making a last attempt to forge consensus on key issues of the constitution drafting before adopting a voting process to settle the disputes.

The deliberations were focused on considering a collective understanding on two key contentious issues: number of federal states and forms of government. Other two contentious issues are electoral system and judiciary system.

The leaders of the ruling party said that the issues will be put to the vote if they failed to find a common ground. In sharp contrast to this UCPN-Maoist is opposed to the voting process saying that key issues should be settled through consensus among the major parties.

The Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have reached a common understanding of dividing the country into six to seven federal units including two such units in the Terai region.

However, the UCPN-Maoist is stressing on increasing the federal units up to 13.

Political parties have set January 22 as deadline to draft the Constitution so as to institutionalise the achievements of the Peoples Movement of 2006.