Kathmandu, September 10 :

General secretary of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi) Rajendra Mahato said today that the problem of citizenship certificates would never be resolved unless Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the 1990 Constitution were scrapped.

He also proposed April-end 2006 to be made the cut-off period for providing citizenships to the four million Madhesi people.

Mahato said the Citizenship Bill 2063 has proposed providing naturalised citizenship certificates to those born in the country by end of April 1990. A bill to this effect was registered today at the Parliament secretariat. He said that the bill was silent about the status of those who were born in the country after the April 30, 1990.

“The bill does not address the problem of those poor people who have been living in the country for a long time but do not have citizenship certificates,” Mahato said.