KATHMANDU, August 14

UCPN-Maoist Constituent Assembly member Prabhu Sah on Friday resigned as the member of the Constitution Drafting Committee, accusing panel’s Chairman Krishna Prasad Sitaula of monopolising the draft of the constitution.

Sah tendered his resignation to Sitaula on Friday at the venue of a meeting of the Special Committee formed by Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee. He said Sitaula was arbitrarily changing provisions of the draft constitution and he could not endorse such a draft.

“I resigned from the committee as it tried to arbitrarily change the provisions of draft, particularly the agendas of change that are at the core of the empowerment of marginalised sections such as Madhesis, Dalits, women, Muslims and Janajatis,” he said. He added that the CDC was also trying to insert positions that were against the spirit of the Interim Constitution, past agreements with various stakeholders and the agreed- upon issues of the first CA that the second CA had owned up.

Speaking to mediapersons at Singha Durbar after tendering his resignation, the former minister said the CDC chairman was not allowing its members to get involved in the constitution-drafting process. “We, members, are being treated as mute spectators and hence I decided to resign from the CDC,” he added. Sah was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Rautahat Constituency No 3 under the first-past-the-post election system.

Sah, who joined the UCPN-M in 2000, rose as a prominent Madhesi leader in the party after Matrika Prasad Yadav quit the party to form another Maoist party a few years ago.

According to a UCPN-M source, Sah believed that Madhes Pradesh would cover the area of Jhapa to Kapilvastu which was the area shown in Maoist party’s documents during people’s war.

Sah is currently unhappy with the delineation of Madhes Pradesh that limits the area from Saptari to Parsa.

Whip of the UCPN-M Rekha Sharma said she was yet to learn about the details of the reasons behind his resignation but the Parliamentary Party would not take any action. “We are in the process of ensuring rights of marginalised communities and if Sah has any issues about ensuring people’s right, we will discuss the matter with him. We will try to convince him,” she added.