KATHMANDU, August 13

The Constitution Drafting Committee on Thursday mandated a six-member task force to prepare the final draft of the constitution within next two days.

The task force is headed by CDC Chair Krishna Prasad Sitaula. Other members of the task force are Bharat Mohan Adhikari, Hitraj Pandey, Aindra Sundar Nembang, Ramesh Lekhak and Jitendra Dev.

Lekhak said the task force would try its best to finish the task within two days.

The Constituent Assembly had sent the report of Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee to the CDC yesterday, mandating it to prepare the final draft of the constitution.

The task force has been mandated to add necessary words in the statute’s clauses and remove unnecessary words besides maintaining uniformity of language. The CA has also asked the CDC to take into account the note of dissent being attached with the CDC report. Lekhak said if they had to remove any word from the draft constitution, they would do so only after consulting the top leaders of the signatories of 16-point agreement.

A meeting of the task force has been scheduled for 11:00am tomorrow.

Secretary of the CDC Ravi Sharma Aryal said 32 CDC members spoke at the meeting on Thursday, with some speakers urging the thematic committee to address the concerns of people expressed against the delineation of six-province model. CDC member Ram Narayan Bidari said most of the members toed their parties’ line on key issues, such as secularism, citizenship, federalism and forms of governance.

Aryal said some CA members told CDC that since it was given full authority by the CA, it should try to settle all the key issues but others argued that if the CDC tried to go beyond the directives of the CDC that could unnecessarily delay the constitution-drafting process.