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| Kathmandu, Monday February 03, 2003 Magh 20, 2059. |
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UML stalwarts divided on
constituent assembly
By Ghanashyam Ojha & Shyam Sundar Sashi
Janakpur, Feb 2 : Top brass and the delegates
for the seventh party congress of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
were divided on the issue of having an elected constituent assembly as demanded by the
Maoists.
Till late night Sunday, party’s close-door
meeting was clearly divided on the diametrically opposite sides but the majority was
clearly in favour of such a body if that is the way to end the seven-year-long violence in
which many CPN-UML workers or leaders have lost their lives.
According to the insiders, while influential
leader KP Sharma Oli was among those who favoured the constituent assembly while general
secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and some of those closely identified with him were opposed to
the demand.
Oli said that the party now should get ready to
go for constituent assembly. "The idea of referendum for either constituent assembly
or constitutional amendment is wrong," a party leader quoted Oli as having told
during the session. He also criticised the party leadership, regarding the decisions taken
by the party in the past.
Oli categorically mentioned that the party
committed a serious mistake while endorsing the emergency rule in the past. He opined that
the party should have immediately resorted to street in protest of the royal move.
"But it was always in confusion whether going to struggle or reconciliation,"
Oli fumed.
While general secretary Nepal and leaders like
Mukunda Neupane, Ishwor Pokharel and Raghuji Pant are against the constituent assembly,
other stalwarts like Oli, Bam Dev Gautam, Shankar Pokharel, Rajendra Shrestha and Pradip
Gyawali are in favour of it.
General secretary Nepal has already made it
clear that constituent assembly could be one of the options to resolve the current crisis.
Besides round table conference and interim
government that the rebel Maoists are pushing for ahead of the peace talks, election for
constituent assembly has figured as an issue of heated discussion among the CPN-UML
stalwarts and representatives here.
Preliminary indications suggested that the party
could agree to go for an election for the constituent assembly. If the party cannot make
unanimous decision on the election for the constituent assembly by late Sunday, then an
extended meeting could make a decision early on Monday. The CPN-UML leaders, however, were
conspicuously divided into two schools of thought regarding the election for the
constituent assembly.
With the beginning of a close-door session of
the party today, general secretary Nepal declared the dissolution of the existing central
committee and proposed for a general convention committee, Ishwor Pokharel told
journalists at a press briefing organised after the session. He also presented the party
organisational and political papers for a discussion.
Nepal in his political paper has mentioned that
the party should stick to referendum for either constituent assembly or constitutional
amendment. It further mentions that the Maoists should be brought to a peaceful dialogue
with a bigger unity among all the political parties.
Reiterating that the current critical situation
could never be resolved by ignoring UML, Nepal said that the party should feel glorified
with the achievements it has garnered for the past 12 years.
Shankar Pokharel, a member of the dissolved
central committee formally, put the proposal of the constituent assembly in the session.
He claimed that the political situation developed after the royal move on October 4 would
in no way be rectified without constituent assembly. Pokharel urged that the role of
political parties would further be strengthened with the formation of a new constitution
after constituent assembly.
Claiming that the constituent assembly would
bring back the disrupted tri-partite agreement reached between the king, Nepali Congress
and the left fronts to a balance, he said that it would also strengthen parliamentary
democracy.
"Even the Maoists and the king are not in a
state of going back in the developing political situation and constituent assembly only
will bring about a progressive reforms," he added.
Shrestha, another member of the dissolved
standing committee, also expressed his opinion, supporting the proposal of constituent
assembly.
However, Neupane, a member of the dissolved
central committee denied the idea of constituent assembly and said that the idea is an
‘Indian grand design’. He opined that the Maoists should be brought back to the
political mainstream and the country should go for fresh polls which, he claimed could
only give a better outlet to the various contentious issues emerged after the royal move.
"Since the preamble of the present
constitution preserves the constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, the
constituent assembly held from within this constitution would not be a different in its
spirit," Neupane told the journalists emerging out of the close session.
He also stressed that the proposal of the
constituent assembly does not speak about the republic. "If the constituent assembly
does not plead for republic, what is the use of holding it," Neupane said. Pant,
another member of the dissolved central committee, told the journalists that the demand of
the constituent assembly was the demand of the Maoists. "If UML goes for constituent
assembly, it seems like UML going the Maoists’ way," Pant said.
Claiming that the party should rather go for
referendum, Pant said the constitution prepared even after the constituent assembly would
have no any difference to the present constitution.
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