Sapkota says Maoists ready to negotiate with NC, UML

Reporters Nepal

Publish date : 23 May, 2013

KATHMANDU: UCPN-Maoist leader Agni Prasad Sapkota has said that his party is ready to negotiate differences with Nepali Congress and CPN UML on provisioning threshold system and to downsize the number of seats in the new Constituent Assembly.

Speaking at an interaction program organized by the Reporters Club Nepal on Thursday sapkota said that adopting flexibility on the issues is necessary to ensure CA elections.

However Sapkota denied to negotiate on removing the presidential decree on removing constitutional hurdles agreed between the political parties earlier.

Referring to the opposition’s claim that the Maoists backtracked from the earlier consensus, leader Sapkota made it clear that his party is firm about the 11-point pact reached among the parties to form Chief Justice-led government and 25-point presidential decree.

However, he charged the CPN-Maoist of being anti-peace and constitution citing that it has been demanding the partisan-government to obstruct the possible outlets.

Sapkota, also the former minister, blamed the NC and UML for engaging in groupism urging them to negotiate staying within the High Level Political Committee—the cross-party mechanism.

However, speaking at the same function, CPN-Maoist secretary Dev Gurung ruled out the purported polls and his party’s partaking in the same unless the 25-point presidential order is repealed.

He said that they are not staging protest to induct themselves into the HLPC and cabinet and he urged to quash the presidential order and form a multiparty political roundtable so that the polls are held.

Those who wish for the polls in the status quo are the foreign agents, Gurung said insisting that the poll does not deserve any meaning unless the four-party syndicate is cracked.

Gurung opted for the 100-member CA citing that the erstwhile CA has already accomplished 80 per cent of the work.
UCPN-Maoist Spokesperson Agni Sapkota speaking at an interaction organised in the Reporters’ Club in Kathmandu, on Thursday, May 23, 2013.