Six parties reach consensus on supplementary bill

Six parties of the seven-party alliance (SPA), minus Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP), Tuesday reached consensus on the draft of new constitution amendment bill, which they say will address the issues raised by Madhesi parties.

According to UML leader Bhim Rawal, who was present at the meeting in Singha Durbar, the six parties signed a three-point understanding according to which a provision will be added in Article 138 of the constitution stating that federal units will be delineated as per the expectations of Madhesis, indigenous communities and Dalits for autonomy.

Likewise, they have also agreed to amend the Article 144 of the constitution to incorporate a clause on making the army an equitable and inclusive institution.

"We believe this agreement will help end the deadlock. We've held several rounds of discussions with the Madhesi parties and now we are confident that the Constituent Assembly would not be stalled again," Rawal said.

Top SPA leaders had met with leaders of Madhesi parties before arriving at their agreement.

However, NWPP representative Sunil Prajapati refused to sign the agreement objecting to the draft of the bill prepared by the three main parties - CPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN (UML).

The Council of Ministers is likely to pass the draft of the supplementary bill later today and introduce it in the CA.

Madhesi parties have obstructed the CA meetings since June 26 demanding constitutional guarantee of 'autonomous Madhes province' and 'group entry' of the Madhesis into Nepal Army. nepalnews.com mk July 08 08

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