Maoists against ending House session, game for temporary suspension

Maoists have said they are against the idea of ending the current session of the parliament.

Senior Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai said that since they are demanding the announcement of republic by the parliament, there is no question of ending the session.

"Besides there is already a constitutional provision whereby the parliament can abolish the monarchy by two-third vote," he said, adding, "We believe that the session must not be ended at this point. We can suspend it for temporary period, though."

Dinanath Sharma, chief whip of the Maoists parliamentary party, said the issue of whether ending or suspending the House session would now be decided by eight party leaders. "We are demanding that the House be suspended for three weeks after which we can discuss the problems we face in districts. A suspended House can be resumed easily while it is not that easy to resume the session if it is ended," Sharma said.

Lawmakers belonging to Nepali Congress (NC), and Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) have called for immediate end or suspension of the parliament session to allow the MPs to return to their respective villages and districts for election campaigning and political education of the people. "The parliament session should quickly be ended or suspended so that MPs can go to villages to create election atmosphere," said UML MP Raghuji Panta. nepalnews.com sd Aug 23 07

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