Government should declare CA elections date without delay: Pun

KATHMANDU: An influential leader of the UCPN-Maoist has said that the government should announce date for Constituent Assembly (CA) elections on the basis of 11 and 25-point agreement.

Speaking at a an interaction program organized by the Reporters Club Nepal on Sunday in the capital, leader Barsha Man Pun said that the government should not wait any longer for consensus and should move ahead on the basis of prior understanding.

Pun said that issues that can be sorted out should be resolved through discussions and added that all unresolved issues should be tested at the ballot box in the CA elections while speaking at the program presided by the Club’s President Rishi Dhamala.

He however denied to dissolve the incumbent Regmi led government as a bargain to mainstream the CPN Maoist.

In a different context, leader Pun said that his party does not have any objections to the proposed 491 seat CA but said that CA elections cannot be held if the proportion of women, madheshi, Janajati and Dalit representations is slashed off.

“Conducive environment for proportional seats should be resolved by amending the CA election bill,” Regmi said.

Commenting on the recent debate on provisioning threshold in CA election, Pun said that such a practice has been never been adopted across the the world and criticized its proponent- Nepali Congress, CPN UML, among other parties, for trying to restrict other parties right to contend the CA elections.

“If some political parties are excluded from participating in the CA elections, as proposed by Nepali Congress and its allies, those excluded parties will take to streets. This will avert the possibility of creating a conducive environment for holding CA elections,” Pun said stressing on the need of not provisioning any threshold laws.

Stating that the incumbent government was formed to hold elections on the basis of agreement reached between political parties, Pun accused Nepali Congress and CPN UML of deviating from the agreement to foil environment for holding CA elections.

Speaking at the same program, NC leader Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat said that political parties should not rake up new issues and abide with the prior understanding to hold CA elections.

He said demanding Chief Justice’s resignation, which is opposed to the prior understanding reached between political parties earlier, could foildthe efforts to hold the CA elections.

However Mahat reiterated that the provision of threshold and the number of seats in the CA should be as agreed between lead political parties.
CPN UML secretary Yuv Raj Gyanwali accused the UCPN Maoist of pushing the nation into uncertainty by not abding by the understanding on number of seats in the CA elections and putting threshold laws.

Political parties had agreed for holding CA elections for 491 seats and the election commission had also finalized the threshold laws only after discussing them with political parties, Gyanwali said adding the constitution cannot be drafted if threshold laws were not put into action.

He ruled out the possibility of not imposing threshold regulations.