House endorses annual budget; Maoists boycott voting

The legislature parliament passed the annual budget by majority vote Thursday evening while the CPN (Maoist) boycotted the voting.

The budget unveiled last month was put to vote after series of debate and Q&A sessions in the House.

Maoist MPs announced boycott the voting, saying it failed to meet people's aspirations and that it was brought without consensus in the eight-party alliance. They also described the budget as pro-palace.

Maoist chief whip Dina Nath Sharma said his party had decided to boycott the voting as the budget did not come according to the spirit of Janandolan-2 and that there were no programmes for radical land reform and debt relief for small farmers.

The Maoist MPs walked out of the parliament after Speaker Subas Nemwang announced a voice vote on the budget.

Nepal Workers and Peasants Party voted against the budget while Janamorcha Nepal and United Left Front stayed away from voting, expressing their reservations.

Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) had issued whips to their MPs to compulsorily attend the voting and vote in favour of the budget.

Finance Minister Dr Ram Saran Mahat had presented Rs 168.99 billion budget for the Fiscal Year 2007/08 on July 12. nepalnews.com mk Aug 09 07

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