KATHMANDU, AUGUST 29
Nepali Congress leaders today met President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to express their concern about the president's decision to return the citizenship bill to the Parliament.
NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba accompanied by NC Vice Chair Dhanraj Gurung, General Secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki met Bhandari and told her that the provisions in the new citizenship bill were no different from the citizenship ordinance that the KP Sharma Oli government had brought last year.
However, UML has been opposing the bill and the president, who had approved that ordinance without any delay, seems to be doing what the UML would have liked her to do.
According to NC General Secretary Thapa, Deuba told the president that he did not like double standards of UML Chair KP Sharma Oli on the citizenship bill.
According to Thapa, the president told NC leaders that she returned the bill to the HoR for reconsideration as she felt it was the right thing to do.
She said she expected lawmakers to start a fresh debate on the citizenship bill.
Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand had earlier told the Parliament that the government would continue its efforts to forge consensus on other issues of the citizenship bill, particularly matrimonial naturalisation. He said the citizenship law could be amended later after parties reached consensus on contentious issues.
CPN-UML has been saying that there should be a waiting period of seven years before foreign women marrying Nepali citizens obtain matrimonial naturalisation.
Meanwhile, the Legislation Management Committee of the National Assembly discussed the citizenship bill today.
Responding to panel members' query, Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand said the government did not bring the citizenship bill with the intention of seeking electoral advantage because people who could obtain citizenship after the enactment of the bill did not have their names on the voter list.
He said the government brought the bill mainly to grant citizenship to children of citizens by birth who, despite constitutional guarantee, had not been able to obtain citizenship in the absence of the new federal citizenship law.
Khand said the government withdrew the old citizenship bill and brought a new bill after forging consensus with political parties.
The president had returned the bill to the House of Representatives a few days ago, urging the Parliament to consider what could be the appropriate provision related to matrimonial naturalisation and affidavits to be submitted by single mothers.
The HoR passed the bill as it is, but the National Assembly referred it to its Legislation Management Committee.
Member of Legislation Management Committee of the National Assembly Narayan Dutta Mishra, who chaired the panel's meeting today, told THT that he favoured taking a call on the bill in the next meeting scheduled for Wednesday so that the full House could start a debate the same day.
Ten members of the panel put forth their views on the bill with lawmakers from the ruling alliance arguing that the bill was complete.
Lawmaker Bimala Rai Paudyal, who was nominated by the president, said the panel should consult experts on the issues raised by the president.
Mishra told THT that he personally felt that consulting experts would not be a good idea as their opinions would further divide opinions on the president's observation. "I think that we should not do anything that could bring the institution into controversy," he added.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 30, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
