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Kathmandu Thursday April 05, 2001 Chaitra 23 2057.
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Rival
NC camps agree to end House session
Ordinances to be re-promulgated
By Damakant Jayshi
KATHMANDU, April 4 – The least
productive session of parliament is about to end. Senior Nepali Congress leaders have
decided to end the current Winter Session of parliament immediately, and re-promulgate the
controversial ordinances dealing with the Armed Police Force and regional administrators.
The royal announcement of the session’s
proroguement could come as early as Thursday, highly placed NC sources told The Kathmandu
Post late Wednesday after a four-hour long meeting of over a dozen senior NC leaders at
the residence of former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba at Budhanilkantha. This meeting
in itself was held after a meeting of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and former
Prime Minister and his bitter rival Krishna Prasad Bhattarai at the latter’s
residence at Bhainsepatti.
"There was agreement to end this session
of parliament immediately," a top NC leader, requesting anonymity, said after the
meeting at Deuba’s residence. "The ordinances which could not be passed in this
session will be re-promulgated as soon as the House is prorogued." Sources also said
that it had been decided not to turn the ordinances into bills for tabling in the House
without first getting the support of the opposition.
The Winter Session of parliament has been
disrupted since the very first day in early February by the opposition parties, mainly the
CPN-UML, who have been demanding that PM Koirala step down for his alleged role in the
controversial Lauda Air deal signed by national flag carrier RNAC. No bills have been
tabled, and no discussions carried out in the House. Even the two ordinances are about to
lapse in the absence of parliamentary approval.
The decision to end the session comes as a
temporary relief for PM Koirala since it allows him to reintroduce the ordinances again,
and therefore keep it into force for at least six months.
The meeting at Deuba’s residence where
the agreement was reached was attended by NC heavyweights aligned to both Bhattarai and
Koirala. The Bhattarai side is represented by Deuba, Purna Bahadur Khadka, Khum Bahadur
Khadka, Bal Bahadur K.C., Chiranjeebi Wagle and Bijay Kumar Gachhaddar. Koirala is
represented by ex-NC general secretary Sushil Koirala, Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra
Poudel, and ministers Mahesh Acharya, Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, Ram Krishna Tamrakar and Omkar
Shrestha, among others.
After the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister and
Home Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said, "the Congress has decided to go unitedly in
the face of attacks on parliamentary democracy by the Maoists and other forces."
The latest development gives an impression of
unity inside the always-warring Nepali Congress, but that is still far from the truth.
Sources said, the meeting at Deuba’s place could not reach an agreement on the
resignation of Prime Minister Koirala, whom the rebel camp charged of failing in every
front of governance. Though many of the leaders from the Koirala side did not refute
demands for the PM’s resignation, Sushil Koirala strongly disagreed, sources said.
When asked to comment on today’s
meeting, former PM and vehement Koirala critic Deuba said: "We all had an open
heart-to-heart meeting. I am optimistic that we are headed in the right direction, and
that we will find solutions satisfactory to all sides, including the opposition." He
refused to elaborate further.
Meanwhile, most of the senior NC leaders denied
that the government was contemplating declaring emergency, as provided for in the
Constitution, in four or five Maoist-infested districts. Such rumours have been
circulating in the Capital since yesterday’s meeting of the National Defense Council.
But on Wednesday, Defense Minister Mahesh Acharya flatly denied that such plans were in
the offing. "There is no such plan," he said.
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