KATHMANDU, June 30: Caretaker Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai held a meeting with Chairman of the CPN-Maoist Mohan Baidya for the first time since the split in the UCPN (Maoist), Saturday evening.
Sources close to Baidya said the two leaders, at their meeting held at Baidya’s residence in Gongabu, discussed the current political situation and ways to address the political crisis.
The Baidya-led Maoists have been insisting on a roundtable conference comprising all political parties including the agitating groups, to arrive at a consensus on issues related to federalism and other thorny points concerning the new statute. The party has also been demanding the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Bhattarai.
CA revival would be a mistake: MPRF chairman
Meanwhile, Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) Chairman Upendra Yadav during his meeting with the prime minister at Baluwatar Saturday said it would be “wrong” to revive the Constituent Assembly (CA).
Yadav maintained that reviving the CA would mean “abducting” people’s rights.
“Who can guarantee that a revived CA will promulgate a new constitution, when the same CA could not promulgate a new constitution in four years,” Yadav said in the meeting.
Yadav suggested that political parties should formulate a draft of the new constitution through consensus before holding parliamentary election. He was of the view that if the parties failed to arrive at consensus on the new constitution, they will not promulgate it yet again. Yadav also maintained that political consensus should not be forged for the sake of power and stated that the task of drafting the new constitution must be prioritized.
In response to Yadav’s urge to take initiatives to forge consensus between political parties, Prime Minister Bhattarai said that he was ready to step down to pave the way for consensus between political parties. However, Bhattarai expressed dissatisfaction over the precondition of his resignation set by the opposition parties for consensus. MPRF is among the parties that have been demanding Bhattarai’s resignation, saying the present government is unconstitutional following the dissolution of the CA on May 27.
Prime Minister Bhattarai held discussion with MPRF Chairman Yadav as part of the series of meetings he has been holding with leaders and representatives from various quarters of the society in a bid to resolve current political crisis
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