Voting Uncertainty At Constituent Assembly
By KTM Metro Reporter
May 11, 2012: Leaders of three large parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC and CPN-UML, and UDMF have tentatively agreed on 11 federal provinces with their names bearing no ethnic identity for now, they will sit tomorrow morning to agree on their names according to the local media.
UCPN-Maoist has shown flexible about the number and names of provinces provided all parties concerned could reach a consensus if not it would stick to its stand on 14 provinces with their names. The latest news is that the Standing Committee of UCPN-Maoist has decided to leave the names of provinces to the province assemblies. NC has been sticking to their stand on seven-north-south provinces whereas CPN-UML has been flip-flopping on a number of provinces. UDMF has continued to advocate for ‘one Madhesh pne province.’
The ethnic members of the CPN-UML have strongly criticized Chairman of CPN-UML Jhalanath Khanal for his instructions to the lawmakers for voting for six provinces formulated by the three members of State-restructuring Commission protesting against the 11 provinces the majority of its members have suggested in case of the voting in the Constituent Assembly. Some lawmakers have claimed that the lawmakers need to follow the party whips in the parliament only as the members of the Constituent Assembly they don’t need to follow the party whips and use their discretions to vote for any matters they seem fit for but others don’t agreed on it.
Chairman of Constituent Assembly has not been able to hold the session to call for votes on various disputed matters, as the Constitutional Committee has not been able to formulate the disputed matters into right formats for taking them to the voting in the Constituent Assembly. So, the Constitutional Committee has sent those issue back to the Dispute-Resolution Sub-committee.