KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 16

The Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government failed to table the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact in the House of Representatives today after one of the ruling coalition partners, the CPN-Maoist Centre, refused to back it.

The CPN-MC held its parliamentary party meeting in the morning and urged the government not to table the MCC deal in the House without forging national consensus or at least consensus among coalition partners.

CPN-MC Chief Whip Dev Prasad Gurung told mediapersons after the parliamentary party meeting that they also decided to vote against the MCC deal if the government tabled it in the House without forging consensus. He said the party urged all stakeholders to talk to the main opposition, CPN-UML, which has been stalling House proceedings over Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota's alleged bias against it. Gurung said the government should not move the MCC deal ahead without removing 'unequal provisions of the deal that undermine Nepal's interests'.

CPN-MC Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal held a meeting with Prime Minister Deuba and informed him of his parliamentary party's decisions, following which the government agreed not to table the MCC deal in the House today.

Speaker Sapkota postponed the House meeting till Friday.

The PM has called a meeting of the ruling alliance tomorrow to forge consensus on the MCC compact. Earlier, Sapkota had discussed the MCC deal in the Business Advisory Committee, but the UML boycotted the meeting.

Minister of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs Dilendra Prasad Badu told mediapersons that the government would table the MCC deal in the House on Friday.

Badu said the government would use the two days to forge consensus on the MCC deal. 'Sometimes consensus is reached overnight,' Badu said when asked to comment about the possibility of reaching consensus with other parties.

The fate of the $500-million MCC grant project is now uncertain with the CPN-MC deciding to vote against it.

Badu said the MCC could not remain in limbo and it should be tabled in the House to let lawmakers take a call on the deal. He said MCC process began when Baburam Bhattarai, who represented the CPN-MC, was the prime minister in 2012 and all subsequent governments supported the MCC deal.

CPN-US leader Jhalanath Khanal told mediapersons that the MCC compact was flawed from the very beginning as people were kept in the dark about its provisions. He said there were provisions that seriously undermined national interests and they should be amended before the compact was ratified by the Parliament.

The US has set a deadline of February 28 to secure parliamentary ratification of the compact. The US has said that the $500 million grant that Nepal was supposed to get through the compact for power transmission lines and road projects could go to other countries that were waiting for American assistance.

CPN-US Spokesperson Jagannath Khatiwada said his party would favour ratification of the MCC compact only if it was revised. 'Stricture motion on MCC would not suffice. The US should be ready to renegotiate the deal and amend its provisions that we deem unfair and unequal,' Khatiwada said.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 17, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.