The three major parties of the Constituent Assembly (CA) have agreed to send the contentious issues of a new constitution back to the Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (CPDCC) with conditions.

A meeting of the major parties – the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the UCPN (Maoist) – held at the Prime Minister´s official residence at Baluwatar this morning concluded that the disputed issues could be sent back to the CPDCC provided that the due process (voting) would be guaranteed if agreement was not possible on the issues in the CPDCC.

UML senior leader Jhalanath Khanal said the thorny issues could be forwarded to the CPDCC for consensus for a few days after consulting the CA Chairman but it should be guaranteed that the due process would be adopted if consensus on the issues was not reached in the committee.

Stating that the parties were putting in the final efforts for consensus by demonstrating flexibility, leader Khanal said there was no other option than going for the process if consensus bid fails in CPDCC. Asked how they would go for the process, he said that could be done by cutting short the provisions made by the CA Regulations.

The leaders who attended today´s meeting said it was agreed in the meeting that since the leaders of the Madhesi Front did not attend the meeting they needed to be consulted and the top leaders of the major parties would meet the CA Chairman and hold consultations regarding how to take the final step forward.

UCPN (Maoist) leader and the Chairman of the CPDCC Dr Baburam Bhattarai said that he was positive regarding sending the contentious issues to the committee for consensus.

"The CPDCC is the only formal platform to discuss and reach consensus on the disputed issues and only sending the issues to the committee would be no good if the top leaders of the 31 parties representing in the CA who are also the members of the CPDCC are not willing to reach consensus," he said.

General Secretary of the Nepali Congress Krishna Prasad Sitaula said discussions were held in the meeting to hold consultations with the CA Chair for adopting the process as per the Regulation if the parties fail to reach consensus on the disputed issues.

The ruling parties and the opposition parties are at loggerheads on the major issues of a new constitution as state restructuring, the election system, the form of governance and the judicial system reports RSS