Twenty-two-party Government, Maoists, And Speaker
By KTM Metro Reporter in Kathmandu
On November 5, 2009, Home Minister Bhim Rawal has said that the government has no plan to use reporters as the state intelligence in the recently launched Special Security Plan (SSP). "The idea is floated to help provide journalists with easy access to information on security matters, we do not have any intention to get information from journalists but we are rather trying to help provide them with easy access to information about SSP," said Rawal in a meeting held with the delegation of Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) at his office in Singha Durbar according to the state-run newspaper ‘The Rising Nepal’ of November 6, 2009. Home Minister Rawal said that the ministry has scrapped the plan after protests from various quarters.
On November 6, 2009, Prime Minister Madhav Nepal presided over the meeting held at his office to discuss the energy crisis in Nepal. He has said that it is necessary to do away with the practice of companies holding the licenses for building hydropower plants but doing nothing.
After the meeting speaking to the reporters of the state-run Radio Nepal, Minister for Power Prakash Sharan Mahat has said that the daily power cut would not end soon; however, the government is initiating to import power from India and repair some thermal plants and build some new ones to mitigate the power shortage.
The Maoist government headed by Prachanda had initiated to build 200 MW thermal power plants but current Prime Minister Madhav Nepal and his colleagues had opposed it saying the power would be costly. If they had let the Maoist government to build the power plant we would not have daily power cut by now.
On November 6, 2009, Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda has said that his party has called off the program on declaring ‘Autonomous Republican States’ scheduled for November 13 for making detailed planning of the states and then only declaring them publicly. Concerning the call of the leaders of the so-called twenty-two political parties on the Speaker of the legislature to use marshals to pass the budget, Prachanda said that it would be another unconstitutional act if they dared to do so.
On November 6, 2009, speaking to the reporters in Biratnagar, Speaker of the legislature Subash Nemwang has said that if the leaders of the political leaders do not work on the consensus politics and seek an alternative means to run the legislature then another political crisis would be added. Concerning the Maoist legislators currently holding the legislature hostage for 37th day on Nov. 6, the Speaker has said that the CPN-UML legislators have held the legislature hostage for 59 days in the past. He has also said that the legislators need to give him advice in view of the legislators of the largest party in the legislature have been holding the legislature hostage according to the news published in the state-run newspaper ‘Gorkhapatra’ of November 7, 2009.