CA to proceed as per its rules: Nembang

Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subash Chandra Nembang today said the CA would proceed as per its rules and established practices if the parties failed to forge consensus on disputed constitutional issues.

By
A Correspondent

Dec. 29, 2014, 5:45 p.m. Published in Magazine Issue: Vol: 08 No. -13 December. 26- 2014 (Poush 11, 2071)

Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subas Chandra Nembang today said the CA would proceed as per its rules and established practices if the parties failed to forge consensus on disputed constitutional issues.

He was responding to CPN-UML CA member Surendra Pandey’s call for CA chairman to play a dynamic role to find a way out after the parties have failed to make any headway on settling disputed issues.

Nembang has called a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee of CA on Wednesday with the five top leaders of major parties — NC President and Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli, Unified CPN-Maoist Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal Chair Kamal Thapa and Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum-Democratic Chair Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar.

Meanwhile, around 40 CA members of NC today met Nembang and urged him to help ensure the new constitution by January 22 by settling the issues through voting, said NC CA member Ram Hari Khatiwada.

BAC would discuss several options on the process of drafting the new constitution, Nembang told reporters. He said the parties had to forge consensus even to go for the voting process and it could take months even if the parties were ready for it. Chairman Nembang, however, refused to reveal what the alternatives could be.

Ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, which have a two-third majority in the CA, have been trying to push the CA towards the voting process on the contentious issues, claiming that their best efforts to forge consensus had failed. On the other hand, UCPN-M and Madhes-based parties have announced to counter ruling parties within the CA and launch an agitation from the streets. They have already called a one-day nationwide strike. “We should not just protest but counter,” UCPN-M Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal told party’s central committee on Sunday.

Discussing the report of the Constitutional-Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, UML lawmaker Pandey said the CA should form a committee to prepare questionnaires and should not resend the disputed issues to CPDCC.