Three parties meet to work out differences on the restructuring of local body

Kathmandu, Aug 30: The today’s meeting of three major political parties held at the Prime Minister’s official residence, Baluwatar ended with an agreement on seeking a solution to the disputes over the issue of restructuring of local bodies.

The meeting held among the ruling parties CPN (Maoist Center) and Nepali Congress; and the main opposition CPN (UML) agreed to sort out differences on the disputed issues concerning the restructuring of local bodies.

Some major political parties have been taking strong exception mainly to the numbers of local units proposed by the Local Body Restructuring Commission (LBRC).

The UML seemed content with the proposal forwarded by the LBRC of creating 565 local units down from over 4,000 earlier while the NC and Maoist Centre have been expressing qualms about it. The NC has demanded that the number of local bodies should be around 1,000.

Now, the three parties today met together to find a middle path on the issue.

After the meeting, the Maoist Centre Spokesperson Pampha Bhusal said the participants including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Deputy Prime Ministers and other top leaders of the major political parties agreed to seek a solution to the problem by continuously engaging in discussion to find various alternatives.

She said the meeting dwelt on creating conducive environment for holding local body elections after ending the disputes on the restructuring of local units within one and a half months.

Likewise, the meeting also discussed the implementation of the constitution and finding consensus among political parties on current political situation, she added.

Other participants include Deputy Prime Ministers Krishna Bahadur Mahara and Bimalendra Nidhi, Minister for Urban Development Arjun Narsingh KC, Maoist Centre leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha, NC senior leader Ram Chandra Poudel, leaders Dr Ram Sharan Mahat , Prakash Man Singh and Purna Bahadur Khadka.

Other participants are UML Officiating Chairman Bamdev Gautam, General Secretary Ishwor Pokharel, Deputy General Secretary Bishnu Prasad Poudel and Secretary Pradip Kumar Gyawali. RSS