KATHMANDU, JUNE 22
Ruling alliance partners have agreed to move the citizenship bill ahead in the Parliament.
The bill has remained stalled for more than three years due to divergence of views among the parties mainly on the provision related to matrimonial naturalisation.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki told mediapersons after the ruling alliance's meeting here today that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba proposed to move the citizenship bill forward. Other leaders of the alliance agreed to his proposal.
"Lakhs of children, whose mothers and fathers are Nepali citizens, have been deprived of citizenship," Minister Karki said.
He added that the government would take the initiative to pass the bill.
The KP Sharma Oli government had brought citizenship ordinance to grant citizenship to children of citizens by birth, but the Supreme Court stayed the ordinance.
Children of citizens by birth had protested in Kathmandu and elsewhere demanding citizenship.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 23, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
