Kathmandu, July 23

Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara has been trying to create environment to forge consensus in order to convene the meeting of the House of Representatives tomorrow, but the ruling NCP and opposition parties — Nepali Congress and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal — don’t appear to have changed their stances on the issues when they left the House on July 15.

On July 15, the ruling NCP wanted to allow Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa to speak first in the House, whereas the opposition parties jointly registered a motion on a matter of public importance to discuss ways to support people affected by floods and landslides and they wanted to discuss this agenda first.

Today, Speaker Mahara held separate meetings with ruling and opposition parties’ lawmakers in his office at Singha Durbar, but failed forge consensus.

The House has called for tomorrow at 1:00 pm. Before that the speaker has called a business advisory meeting at 11:00 am. “We did not reach consensus today. I hope tomorrow we can find a solution before the meeting starts,” NC Whip Puspa Bhusal told THT.

The NC and RJP-N want the House to start from where they had left on July 15. “We want to discuss the motion on a matter of public importance,” RJP-N President Raj Kishor Yadav told THT.  The motion was registered by NC lawmakers Minendra Rijal and Whip Bhusal along with Yadav at the Parliament Secretariat.

On the other hand, an NCP lawmaker told THT that opposition parties would not be allowed to do what they wanted in the House each time. “They should follow rules and regulations of the House,” the lawmaker added.

The two opposition parties — Nepali Congress and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal — had obstructed House proceedings since July 9, demanding formation of a parliamentary committee to investigate the loss of two lives in police firing in Sarlahi. But after the devastating floods and landslides, opposition parties suspended their demand for a while and asked that a matter of public importance be discussed in the house.

Interestingly, in the National Assembly, both ruling and opposition parties came together and planned to discuss floods and landslides in the country in the House meeting.