A day after UCPN (Maoist) floated 10-province federal model, the Nepali Congress came up with a proposal to create seven provinces in the meeting of the top leaders of the major parties on Friday.

The NC's federal model presented in the meeting held at Constituent Assembly (CA) building in New Baneshowor is based on ethnicity, territory, culture and language.

The meeting did not enter into serious debate on the NC's proposal as the meeting was shortened due to the central committee meeting of the CPN-UML scheduled to take place this evening.

The top level meeting was called to negotiate on the thorny issues related to constitution drafting process- mainly the state restructuring as yesterday’s meeting ended without any headway after the UCPN (Maoist) proposed 10 federal states based on ethnicity and territory.

In yesterday’s meeting, the Maoist party had put forth fresh proposal of 10-state model.

The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have rejected the Maoist proposal saying that it is against the agreement reached among the major parties to carve six to eight federal states during their Hattiban meeting.

Although the parties have reached tentative understanding on electoral system, citizenship and judicial system they are yet to formalise it. They are still clearly divided on the most contentious issue - the federal model as well as form of governance. nepalnews.com

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