Parties nearing consensus on local bodies

The major parties in the parliament have, with little amendment, principally agreed to the draft presented by Minister for Local Development Ram Chandra Jha on sharing seats in the local bodies.

According to the understanding reached Tuesday, the biggest party in the constituent assembly United CPN (Maoist) will have 22 seats for chairman and vice chairman in District Development Committees out of 75 districts. Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) will have 17 seats each for chairman and vice chairman of the DDC.

Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) will have seven seats as its share while Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) and other small parties will share remaining seats.

Similarly, the big parties also agreed on sharing seats at the municipalities. Maoists will lead 17 municipalities and NC and UML will lead 12 municipalities each. MJF will get five and CPN (ML) is likely to occupy two.

The parties have announced to form a taskforce to do more homework on formation of the local bodies.

However, the parties failed to decide on leadership of the Village Development Committee. Maoists insist on sharing the seats based on representation at the CA while other parties stressed that votes received on proportional representation should be the basis for sharing seats.

Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party and Rastriya Janamorcha rejected the proposal by Minister Jha and demanded that elections must be held in local bodies.

The government had announced to form the local bodies by mid-January to expedite the development activities. Budget allocated for local development has not been used due to absence of local governments. nepalnews.com ia Jan 20 09