Kathmandu, December 2:

Maoist supremo Prachanda today said autonomy, federalism and right to self-determination should be the crucial issues in restructuring of the state.

“People took part in the historic movement to put an end to centralised feudal state and create a state in which everyone can have their say,” he said, adding that restructuring of the state was the real concern at the moment.

The federal democratic republican system in Nepal would be one of its kind and not a replication of any system.

“It will be the one based on Nepali ground reality, explored and developed in Nepali soil and which would address the aspirations of the people,” Maoist supremo Prachanda said.

“Nothing like autonomy, self-determination and federalism were mentioned in the historic peace accord because the document was more a compromise we had to make to defeat the actors who did not want to see an agreement of that sort reached. The peace accord should therefore, be considered the victory of people because we defeated all regressive and reactionary forces by showing flexibility,” he said.

A new Nepal will ensure representation of ethnic, religious and backward communities, he said.

He also said there would be 40 per cent women representation from his party in the upcoming interim legislature.

“Ethnic issues are the real issues to be addressed at the moment. We will propose addressing these issues in the interim constitution because these were the issues we raised while launching people’s war,” he said.

He was speaking at a programme organised by National Forum Against Ethnic Discrimination to hand over to him a draft of ‘Federal Democratic Republic Constitution 2006’. The draft was prepared by an alliance of 12 different ethnic organisations.