Constituent Assembly is highly likely to get a six-month extension
KATHMANDU: The Constituent Assembly is highly likely to get a six-month extension tomorrow with the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML favouring the same.
According to sources, the Congress and the UML had plans to lobby for a three or four-month extension for the CA, whose term expires on November 30, but they changed their mind after yesterday’s Supreme Court verdict that the constitution-making body will dissolve automatically if it fails to promulgate the constitution within the renewed deadline this time.
Last week, the government had registered a Bill on the 11th Amendment to the Interim Constitution at the Parliament, seeking six more months for the CA. The UCPN-Maoist and other partners in the ruling coalition will vote for the bill, sources said. The Congress and the UML are also ‘positive about a six-month extension’, sources said, meaning they will also go for the bill, which the House is scheduled to put to vote at 4 pm tomorrow. The two opposition parties intend to up the pressure on the coalition partners this time around. At the top-level meeting of the three major parties scheduled for tomorrow morning, the NC and the UML will urge the coalition partners to come up with a time-bound action plan to govern the constitution-making process, sources said.
The Congress and the UML have authorised their top leaders to hold talks with the Maoist party on the duration of the extension.
The NC Parliamentary Party (PP) meeting held in Singha Durbar today authorised PP leader Ram Chandra Paudel to negotiate with other parties on the CA extension, PP spokesperson Nabindra Raj Joshi said. According to Joshi, the PP meeting concluded that the parties must prepare a time-bound action plan for the completion of remaining tasks of the peace and constitution writing processes within the renewed deadline. By Prakash Acharya from THT