KATHMANDU: The Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Nepal and the Upendra Yadav-led Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal on Monday issued a joint statement demanding various amendments to the Constitution.

The statement comes at a time when the government is reportedly preparing to file an amendment proposal in a bid to convince the Federal Alliance and the United Democratic Madhesi Front, which have been protesting the Constitution since its promulgation in September last year.

Yadav's FSF-N is a major constituent of both the agitating blocs.

Bhattarai, who had led the Constitution-writing negotiations as the Chairman of the Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, on the other hand, had quit his UCPN-Maoist party as well as the Parliament to form the Naya Shakti Nepal just a week after the Constitution promulgation.

The latest cooperation has reinforced speculations that the FSF-N and NSN are holding rounds of talks for a possible merger before any election soon.

The government was preparing to register the bill on Sunday, but had postponed the plan after the UDMF reportedly did not endorse the draft.

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The Bhattarai-Yadav statement demanded that the amendments should be made on issues including national identity, federalism with rights, full proportional representative Parliament, directly elected presidential system, proportional inclusion in all state bodies, multilingual policy, autonomy and self-governance among others.

They said that if the amendments were not made on these issues, the Constitution could not be accepted and implemented well.

"Class-based, ethnic, gender, lingual, cultural, religious and regional forms of discrimination should end with the Constitution amendment," the leaders said, "Our opinion is that the Constitution amendment should find concrete solutions to national problems."