KATHMANDU, JANUARY 27
The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-Madhav Kumar Nepal faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) staged a sit-in at Maitighar Mandala in Kathmandu today as part of its third phase of the protest against dissolution of the House of Representatives.
Dahal-Nepal faction's struggle committee has called for a two hour sit-in every day starting from today until February 3.
Today, members of the dissolved Parliament, lawmakers of the former Constitutional Assembly, and provincial lawmakers joined the protest programme.
The faction has scheduled a protest rally and a programme to pay tribute to martyrs on January 29, protest rally on February 4, torch rally on February 8 and finally a mass demonstration on February 10. The disgruntled faction had staged a whistle rally yesterday.
Senior leaders of the faction, however, were not present during today's protest. Leaders such as Dahal and Nepal had received flak from the public for creating chaos in the city during the first phase of protest at Bhrikuti Mandap.
The majority of lawmakers of the ruling NCP of the dissolved House led by Dahal and Nepal along with other lawmakers from opposition parties such as Nepali Congress and Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal have been staging protest against the December 20 move of the prime minister.
The Dahal-Nepal faction has been staging demonstrations against the dissolution of the HoR since December 29.
Pampha Bhusal, lawmaker of the dissolved House representing the Dahal-Nepal faction, talking to the media during the sit-in, said that they were on the street to rectify the unconstitutional move of the PM.
"Oli's unconstitutional move dissolving the House is regressive and it shows his ambition to become an autocratic ruler.
We are here to correct his mistakes," Bhusal said. She further said that the sit-in was necessary to safeguard the constitution, federalism and republicanism.
The Dahal-Nepal faction has been saying that there is no provision in the constitution that a government with majority can dissolve the House.
There are at least a dozen cases filed at the Supreme Court against dissolution of the HoR.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 28, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
