Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd.

House session goes into half an hour recess

Following the address by the whips of Nepali Congress (NC), Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and Maoists, the Speaker of the interim parliament has announced half an hour recess at 7:10 pm.

The recess comes at a time when communist parties including UML, Maoists, Unity Center and People's Front have been meeting at UML's parliamentary party office to find ways to avert the situation whereby proposal on republic would be rendered into a minority when it comes for voting later on.

The Speaker Subas Nemwang announced the recess after Maoist whip Janardan Sharma aka Prabhakar addressed the parliament.

Earlier, Prabhakar defended the Maoist standpoints and urged other parties to see reason and support their proposal for immediate republic and fully proportional representation election system.

He rejected charges that the Maoists had blocked republic. "How can we be betrayer when we want immediate declaration of federal democratic republic? How can our stand on PR system be anti-election when we want to ensure representation of all groups of people?" he asked.

He said that being a party with a different background, Maoists had their own specific problems. "We are hurt when we see foreigners dictating. We are ready to face any challenge (to protect) nation, people and sovereignty," he said.

Before him, NC and UML chief whips Ananda Bahadur Dhungana and Mahendra Bahadur Pandey had addressed the House.

Addressing the House, chief whip of Nepali Congress (NC) Ananda Prasad Dhungana expressed sadness over the prospect of divisive voting to decide the Maoist proposal on immediate republic declaration and adoption of fully proportional representation based election system.

Defending the NC position, Dhungana said that Congress always stands by the promises and the commitments made to the Nepali people. He rejected charges that NC was against republic or the PR system.

"We had suggested passing a proposal expressing parliamentary commitment on democratic federal republic declaration to be implemented after the CA election," he said, adding, "We had also agreed for mixed system where fifty percent of seats will be elected on the basis of PR system. So it is untrue that we are against PR system."

Likewise, UML chief whip Mahendra Bahadur Pandey said that his party was steadfast in its resolve to usher in republic in the country.

Pandey said UML's amendment proposal aimed to bring all parties together and strengthen their unity.

He said that they were still in last-minute discussions. "If our discussions succeed, then we might resolve this problem within half an hour or so," he said. nepalnews.com sd Nov 02 07