Budget talks irks opposition at lead party meeting

KATHMANDU: Opposition party leaders have complained that the ruling allies attempted to foil today’s consensus-bid by opening discussions on introducing a full fledged budget.

The talks held between UCPN Maoist, Nepali Congress (NC), CPN UML and the Joint Democratic Madheshi Morcha (JDMF) remained inconclusive even though the party leaders touched upon issues ranging from holding CA elections, forming consensus government and introducing a full fledged budget.

Exiting the meet, NC Vice President Ram Chandra Paudel said that the ruling allies (Maoist and JDMF) irritated by stressing on introducing full fledged budget.

Responding to the discussion, UML senior leader has been reported to have presented a seven point charter for garnering consensus in package informed Paudel.

The seven point demand includes charting out resolved issues of the new constitution and packing them, finalizing process to promulgate the new constitution,  as CA resurrection has been outdated discussions and efforts should focus on holding elections, dissolving the Bhattarai led government, forming a consensus government that will take decision on bringing full fledged budget and holding election.

Along with that Nepal has said that the number of direct and proportional for the elections should be decided in this package and said that all this should be done within a strict deadline of one week at the most.

Both opposition parties have expressed solidarity with the proposal and have claimed that they will leave talks and hit the streets if the ruling allies deny concentrating on the demands and push for introducing the budget through the incumbent government.