KATHMANDU: The main opposition party, UCPN-Maoist tabled a 12-point note of dissent on the report of the Constitution of Nepal, 2072 which came as an agreement among the major political parties.

At the Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, UCPN-Maoist vouched for a state structure with directly elected executive head. The parties have agreed on constitutional President and parliament-elected Prime Minister as the executive head against the widespread clamour for directly elected executive.

As per the feedbacks collected from the people on the draft constitution we should have had a directly elected executive head but that has not happened, so we were forced to present this note of dissent, UCPN-Maoist Chief Whip Girirajmani Pokharel said.

The party has demanded incorporating Kailali and Kanchanpur - where the majority is held by the Tharu community- into the provincial state with Dang, Banke and Bardiya districts and of embedding Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari districts into the provincial state no 1.

Furthermore, the party has pressed for the need of proportional system allowing representation of labourers and backward communities in all of state's bodies and restructuring the judiciary.

In the note of dissent, the UCPN-Maoist has called for granting special autonomy to certain areas in the federal provinces holding majority of certain ethnic groups, community and language speakers apart from the main structure of organisation, province and the local level. It has also called for giving the status of special area for conservation and promotion of the cultural sector of ultra minority community and the marginalised communities verging on extinction.

The party has also called for 50 per cent women's representation in local level and 40 per cent in the provincial assembly; at least 10 per cent representation of Dalit community in federal Parliament and mentioning ‘patriarchal and caste-based discrimination’ in the constitution's preamble, said Pokharel.

He said the disagreement and dissenting notes that were presented by lawmakers on behalf of the UCPN-Maoist in the Draft Committee and those that had not yet been addressed were also registered as note of dissent.