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Kathmandu,Friday March 03, 2000 Fagun 20, 2056.
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Politics may hit House
business
By Binaj Gurubacharya
KATHMANDU, March 2 - With one third of the
cabinet missing and the ruling party soaked in a hostile power struggle, the winter
session of parliament has fallen victim and the lawmakers are not too happy about it.
The parliament that convened this week is
gearing up for a month-long working session with at least 16 Bills on hand and a few other
current issues to discuss.
However, the recent feud in the governing
Nepali Congress (NC) has not only widened the gap in the party but had prompted 11 members
of the cabinet to resign.
Some of these ministers were scheduled to
present, defend and propose amendments on these Bills. It is now the responsibility of
Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai to deal with all the issues related to at least
nine of these ministries.
Following the resignation of these
ministers, Prime Minister Bhattarai had assumed the additional portfolios. The question
remains in everyone’s mind is whether he will be able to cope with the load.
Besides having to deal with the routine
business of these ministries, the prime minister will now have to take up the burden of
facing the lawmakers’ questions during question and answer hour of these nine
ministries that have already numbered over 400 in the first two days of the session.
Now whether the prime minister who is
recovering from a bad back and is walking leaning on his body guard and the marshall can
take hours of questions, study all the issues and the Bills and then defend the government
remains the real question.
“This is disgraceful. It is the
government who is responsible for giving business to the House and this government is busy
with its own internal feuds and is least interested in the affairs of the parliament,”
accused Iswor Pokhrel, politburo member of the main opposition CPN-UML.
Of the three new Bills that were registered
specifically for this session, two are government Bills from ministries whose ministers
have just resigned.
Now these Bills will have to be registered
again with the name of Prime Minister Bhattarai as the presenter or someone else who heads
the ministries.
Members of both the ruling parties and the
opposition are hopeful that Prime Minister will reshuffle his cabinet and reassign all
these ministries before the House resumes for business on Monday.
“We are confident that the situation
will be resolved by Monday,” NC Chief Whip Gopal Man Shrestha said. “The prime
minister simply can’t handle all these ministries he has at the moment.”
It is just not the parties and their
lawmakers who are unsure about the effectiveness of the session, Parliament Secretariat
officials admitted that the confusion in the ruling party and the possible change of prime
minister will once again sideline the main business of the House.
The Ministry for Parliamentary Affairs has
already received a list of 35 Bills from various ministries notifying it about the Bills
these ministries plan to forward for assent.
“The ministers need to be fully aware
about the details of the Bills and be able to answer all questions raised ... when these
ministries are left without ministers and handled by the means of temporary arrangement it
becomes tough to get the Bills through,” Secretary at the Ministry Shree Krishna
Gautam said.
The winter session of parliament has
traditionally been called a working session. However, the last three of these sessions
concentrated on either forming or falling of governments.
This year too, the power struggle between
Prime Minister Bhattarai and NC President Girija Prasad Koirala is preventing the
parliament from conducting its real business.
Last week, Prime Minister Bhattarai had
agreed to step down after more than half his lawmakers rebelled against him last month and
filed a proposal of no-confidence against him.
A last minute agreement between the prime
minister and the party president that Bhattarai would step down in the near future managed
to defuse the situation and avert any crack in the party for now at least.
Meanwhile, in a letter to the parliament
forwarded by the Royal Palace, suggestions have been made on the Bills related to
political parties, resolving of the Maoist issue and making the next election more
peaceful, fair and transparent.
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