Minister, three Madhesi MPs resign from parliament

Citing growing problems in the Terai region, a cabinet minister and three Madhesi parliamentarians from various parties have announced their resignation as members of the Interim Legislature Parliament.

Science and technology minister Mahantha Thakur, who represents the Nepali Congress party, Hridayesh Tripathi, a lawmaker from Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandi Devi), Mehendra Yadav of CPN (UML) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) lawmaker Ram Chandra Raya announced their resignations on Monday.

They tendered their resignation to the parliament secretariat. They also quit their party posts.

Similarly, five leaders from Terai - Sarbendra Nath Sukla of Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP), Anish Ansari, Ram Chandra Kushwaha and Brishesh Chandra Lal of NC and Srikrishna Yadav of UML quit their party posts citing the same reasons.

Organising a press conference at a hotel in Lalitpur this afternoon, the Madhesi leaders said they had decided to quit the parliament and their parties in response to the state's apathy towards solving the problems dogging the Terai people.

They also demanded that the interim government, interim parliament and the judiciary be reconstituted in order to make them inclusive in nature. They, however, said they were not espousing separatist agendas.

Hridayesh Tripathi said they were going to start discussions on the possibility of forming a new party.

NC lawmaker Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta was also present in the press conference, but he didn’t clarify if he, too, had joined this rebel bandwagon.

The sudden move of Mahesi leaders comes at a time when the seven parties are striving to evolve a consensus to end the current political deadlock. The parties are yet to react officially on these developments. nepalnews.com mk/ia Dec 10 07