Stating that elections in May was not possible without putting an end to the current political deadlock, he emphasized on the need of ensuring the necessary constitutional and legal arrangement within the next few days.

He also made it clear that he was ready to make any sacrifice for a political consensus including resigning from his post.

The Prime Minister also stressed on practical enforcement of the spirit of the 12-point agreement reached between the then CPN (Maoist) and the seven party alliance for a political consensus.

Responding to telephone queries from listeners, the Prime Minister said the government was making all necessary effort to save the life of Amar Sunar, jailed in the United Arab Emirates.

According to the PM, the government was making utmost efforts to limit the loadshedding within 12 hours a day this winter.

He had talked to India about the import of 200MW electricity to address acute shortage here, PM Bhattarai said, adding that government was planning for making a path friendly to the disabled people inside Singh Durbar.

Similarly, he said due to the lack of full budget, salaries and allowances to civil servants have been delayed. If the President had issued the ordinance relating to the civil servants, all problems of the civil service could be solved, he argued.

Procedural complexities were delaying the appointment of the executive director at Nepal Tourism Board.

Likewise, he shared that government was planning to give two day holiday in government service to meet the international standard with better performance and enhanced capacity of civil servants. RSS

Maoist supremo Puspa Kamal Dahal had rolled out the proposal to his NC counterpart Sushil Koirala at his own residence in the capital on Thursday, in a bid to ease off the ongoing stand off between the ruling and opposition parties.

Informed and reliable sources claimed that Prachanda had offered Finance, Home, and Defense among other ministries to Sushil as a bargain to participate in the Bhattarai led government and move ahead with holding CA elections, brining full budget.

Along with hot key posts, Prachanda had proposed to form a high level steering committee comprising of all political parties and put Sushil in its charge. The steering committee would govern the government and also provide feedback to the government.

However, Sushil denied to accept both proposals and made it clear to Prachanda that his party wont support the incumbent government  and warned that his party would take to streets if the Bhattarai government is not dissolved to pave way for the formation of national consensus government.

Koirala urged Prachanda to play constructive role in dissolving incumbent government and for supporting the formation of NC led national consensus government while warning that his party would not back off from the agenda and will agitate if the government and ruling parties do not heed to opposition’s demand.

The meeting was also attended by NC Vice President Ram Chandra Paudel.

KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala has claimed that the government cannot continue running the state through ordinances.

Talking to journalist outside the President’s residence in the capital on Wednesday, he informed that he had urged the President same and added that he had called the President to end this trend.

Discussion between him and the President centered on resolving the ongoing status quo and paving way for tabling the full budget among other issues.

Stating that the President was even more worried than his earlier meeting with him, Koirala said that the President urged to escalate efforts to end ongoing political stalemate and pave way for consensus politics.

Similarly, the President also urged to resolve outstanding issues related to election and constitution drafting.

In response Koirala said that he reiterated the opposition’s demand of PM’s resignation as primary condition for garnering national consensus.

He said that the Prime Minister should resign to create an environment of trust in politics and thereby pave way for resolving political crisis.

The leaders could not forge any consensus on the issue of national unity government at the meeting that was held at a house of a Non Resident Nepali in Sanokothi, Lalitpur.

However, they came up with a common view to hold elections to Constituent Assembly (CA) or Legislature-Parliament by coming mid-May, 2013.

Emerging out from the meeting, Vice-chairperson of Unified CPN (Maoist) and Deputy Prime Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha said the meeting widely discussed from different angles to give outlet to the present impasse and agreed to hold formal meeting again following informal talks among leaders.

The meeting zeroed in on holding fresh elections on coming May, he said, adding that matters related to the process and methods of constitutional amendment required for election were also discussed.

Nepali Congress (NC) Vice-president Ram Chandra Poudel said that the party had put forward a proposal to form election government under NC leadership in line with the five-point deal.

The Unified CPN (Maoist) has indicated that discussion could be initiated to that end, he added.

The ruling parties did not budge from their stance to hold election under the incumbent government while oppositions presented a proposal of forming a national consensus government, said CPN-UML leader Bhim Rawal.

He quoted Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai as saying that he would not be an obstacle if parties come together for a national government. RSS

KATHMANDU: Finance Minister Barshaman Pun has said that the government would bring a full-fledged budget on the basis of consensus among the political parties.

However, the government would present the complete budget keeping in mind the necessity of the nation even in the absence of political consensus, he said urging the opposition parties not to politicize a sensitive issue of the nation like the budget.

Speaking at a press meet organised by the Janasanchar Abhiyan here on Friday, Minister Pun urged the opposition parties to think about the interests of the nation and work accordingly.

The incumbent government has continued the policies and programmes that were announced by the previous government and let the way for political consensus on the budget with the announcement of the one-third budget, he said and added complete budget is the demand of one and all while stressing that the budget should not be interpreted for the sake of political interests.

The President cannot prevent the budget from being tabled, said the Finance Minister and added that if this happened, it would be a great misfortune to the nation. The government has a compulsion of presenting the budget through an ordinance since the nation is running without a parliament, he said.

According to Minister Pun, the government has been planning to announce an estimated budget of Rs 429 million.

He said Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai would resign from his office once the political consensus on the disputed issues was forged.

Stating that guarantee of people’s rights was the sole interest of the UCPN (Maoist), he said the government and the coalition partners are ready for fresh elections.

Minister Pun said that government does not want widen differences with the President, making the opposition parties irritated. RSS

KATHMANDU: Vice Chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC) Deependra Bahadur Kshetry has said that a draft of the complete budget will be presented before the President since the government has planned to bring out a full-fledged budget despite protests from the opposition parties.

Taking part in a face-to-face programme organised by the Reporters Club Nepal, NPC Vice Chairman Kshetry claimed that the government would come up with the complete budget despite discontent from the opposition parties.

“The upcoming budget will be of around Rs. 450 billion and is expected to address basic needs of the people”, he said, adding that nothing will be achieved if the private sector that has seventy percent contribution to the nation’s economy is not recognized.

Also speaking at the programme, economist Dr Tilak Rawal stressed the need of bringing out the budget on political consensus. He claimed that nation’s economy would see no serious effect in absence of the full-fledged budget. “The nation’s economy is becoming weaker from every aspects and only the government employees may be hard hit from a lack of complete budget” , he opined.

Urging the ruling partners to do their best for the announcement of the complete budget, he suggested that the consensus government should bring the complete budget.

Another economist Dr Chiranjibi Nepal said the government could not bring out the budget in the absence of consensus. He added that the upcoming budget should include the general expenditures and continue the development projects that are in implementation only if it could not be brought through consensus.

Economist Dr Bishwambhar Pyakurel, former Governor Himalaya Shamser JBR, economist Keshab Acharya, Koshraj Pandey and Chamber of Commerce President Suresh Kumar Basnet underlined the need of giving the nation complete budget at any cost so as to make the nation’s economy revitalized.

They warned that the nation’s business establishment would further worsen with emergence of a crisis of trust in the foreign investment and private sectors if the nation’s economy is oxygenized for a long time. RSS

Sushil faced strong opposition from his party comrades, that included senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, his deputy Ram Chandra Paudel and another influential leader of the party Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat, in endorsing the decision.

Factions of the party led by these leaders had tried to foil Sushil’s attempt so as to endorse their decision for resurrecting the CA by cooperating with the UCPN Maoist and other parties.

“The party has decided to go for CA/Legislative elections,” party leaders Arjun Narsingh KC said after the party’s central committee meeting held at the party head office in Lalitpur on Wednesday.

“We have decided to go for elections in April/May,” KC said adding that the leaders mentioned above had stressed on “not sticking only to elections but remaining open to other options including CA resurrection.”

Though the party ultimately decided to go for elections, Paudel had tried to convince the leadership that CA resurrection was inevitable even for holding elections. But Sushil and the establishment side crushed Paudel and his lots’ argument.

The decision has now clearly positioned the main opposition party in confrontation with the main ruling party UCPN Maoist that has been trying hard to persuade opposition as well as its ruling ally- Madheshi Morcha- to opt for CA resurrection.

Along with the decision, the party has concluded that the dissolution of the incumbent Bhattarai led government and formation of a consensus government is essential to bring full budget and to chart out the plan for holding elections.

“The government does not have constitutional and political ground for continuing,” party spokesperson Dilendra Prasad Badu said adding that the “leadership of the consensus government can be decided later through mutual understanding”.

Badu said that his party has grounds to claim the leadership of the consensus government but added that the party has decided to remain flexible on the issue for garnering political consensus.

Chitra Raj Bhandari, KATHMANDU: Nepal’s ruling coalition partners have decide to expand the cabinet if inter-party consensus on outstanding issues is not reached during Thursday’s four-party meeting.

A meeting of the ruling allies held in Kathmandu on Wednesday morning took such a decision a day after the opposition parties had warned to hit the streets if their 7 point demands were not fulfilled.

Countering the 7 point demands, presented on Tuesday by UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, which focuses on removing Bhattarai government from power and putting up a consensus government, the ruling allies decided that they would work out on a separate political course if Thursday’s four-party meet fails to take a common course.

The alliance, formalized as Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA) gave the responsibility of holding talks with the opposition parties to its chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal.

Spokesperson of the FDRA Prem Bahadur Singh informed that the FDRA would go ahead with its earlier plans to organize general assembly in five development regions across the nation.

Along with the Singh said that the government will appoint chiefs to all vacant constitutional bodies and initiate actions to bring full budget.

He said that stalling the budget would be disastrous to the already limping national economy and claimed that the government will not hold the budget hostage to political consensus.

However the meeting has also stressed on resolving the issue of budget and unity government formation in a package.

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.

Chitra Raj Bhandari: Nepal’s UCPN Maoist supremo Puspa Kamal Dahal aka ‘Prachanda’ has remained famous for his cunning proposals that change with the milieu. His double edge talks always have a plan. Double standard shown by him in simultaneously proposing CA resurrection and CA elections, has delivered results. Nepali Congress is internally divided on the row and it is sure to help in maintaining his dominance in Nepal’s politics for some time now.

On Monday also, Prachanda rolled both dices at the same time. He claimed that his party will remain stead fast with its present proposal of CA resurrection. But in the next sentence, he added that CA election is his party’s official decision and would stick to it.

With both said, Prachanda once again denied any clear cut framework from his party’s side, keeping Congress and UML starring at him with amazement, disgust ( in case of Koirala) and hope ( in case of Paudel, and Deuba. Koirala says both of them are supporting Prachanda to become PM of the much hyped consensus government).

Prachanda did this double-talk at a tea party hosted by Nepali Congress. And at this same party, Congress Party President Sushil Koirala did not made any efforts to conceal his frustration with Prachanda’s blunt proposals.

Sushil said that its high time that Prachanda comes up with a clear framework for resolving political impasse.

While saying this it was evident, Koirala still remained in a lurch and devoid of his counter plans or own party’s plan for resolving the present deadlock. Which he should have as the president of the Nepal’s leading democratic party.

While Sushil dared to deny submitting to Prachanda’s recent plan on CA resurrection, his deputy Ram Chandra Paudel, who until recently was his strong supporter, said CA resurrection was the only viable option to resolve Nepal’s political crisis.

Besides Paudel, Sher Bahadur Deuba, Koirala’s long standing rival within the party, bluntly stood in favour of CA resurrection and claimed that the upcoming Central Committee meeting of the party will take a formal decision in that regard.

Deuba’s and Paudel’s statements were indicative of their strong undeclared allegiance in endorsing CA resurrection proposal at the party’s central committee meeting and jointly confronting Sushil.

This in fact is Prachanda’s plan to maintain his party’s domination in Nepal’s politics which, if gone for CA reelections would fall given his party’s failure to fulfill the promises made during the insurgency and the CA election run.