The meeting of the Constituent Assembly, which was scheduled to take place at 3pm Friday, has been cancelled with the Constitutional Committee (CC) not being able to provide the questionnaire related to the contentious subjects of the constitution on which voting will be conducted.

A notice issued by the CA secretariat stated that the meeting was put off due to "lack of business". This is the 10th consecutive deferral of the CA meeting. Yesterday's meeting was also deferred citing the same reason.

Meanwhile, the CC has forwarded the questionnaire to the dispute resolution Sub-Committee after the major parties added the questions in the form.

CA member and Maoist leader Agni Kharel said that the Sub-Committee will finalise the questionnaire by Saturday afternoon and then the process of voting will start.

The parties in the CA differ on at least 117 issues related to the major subjects of the constitution including restructuring of the state, form of governance and electoral system.

Major parties have said they would still remain engaged in negotiations to find consensus on the contentious issues even as the voting process get underway in the CA. nepalnews.com