KATHMANDU, JULY 8
The government today withdrew the Nepal Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill from the House of Representatives, where it was under consideration for almost four years.
Majority of the members of the House supported the government's proposal to withdraw the citizenship bill registered by the KP Sharma Oli government on 7 August 2018.
Earlier, speaking from the rostrum of the House, Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand had tabled the proposal to withdraw the bill.
Responding to lawmakers' concerns on the bill, Khand said the government was withdrawing the bill so as to bring a new bill and secure its passage within this session of the Parliament.
The bill became controversial mainly after some members of the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the HoR belonging to the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP) (now belonging to the CPN-Maoist Centre, CPN- UML, and CPN-Unified Socialist) inserted a seven-year waiting period for foreign women married to Nepalis to obtain matrimonial naturalisation. The Nepali Congress and the Madhes-based parties opposed the seven-year waiting period.
"The government wants to register a new citizenship bill in the House by forging consensus," Khand said.
He added that the government wanted to ensure constitutional rights of eligible citizens who had not been able to obtain citizenship due to non-enactment of the federal citizenship law.
"Eligible citizens are facing a lot of difficulties in the absence of citizenship. We all can feel their suffering. The government wants to fulfil its national obligation by enabling deserving citizens to obtain their citizenship," Khand said.
He urged lawmakers to support the government's move without doubting the government's intention.
Khand said that youngsters who had not been able to obtain their citizenship due to non-enactment of the citizenship law were frustrated. Despite the constitutional guarantee, children of citizens by birth have not been able to obtain citizenship in the absence of the new federal citizenship law.
Children of single mothers and people of gender and sexual minorities also face difficulties in obtaining citizenship.
CPN-UML lawmakers said the government, instead of trying to pass the citizenship bill, was withdrawing the bill. He said the government's real motive could be to delay the citizenship bill registration process and make things uncertain for those who were eligible but had not been able to obtain their citizenship.
Lawmaker Hridayesh Tripathi said the insertion of seven-year waiting period for foreigner women married to Nepali men to obtain Nepali citizenship was not there in the original bill and was against the norms of parliamentary practice.
The bill was withdrawn only after some lawmakers' notices of opposition against the government's proposal were rejected by majority members of the House.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 9, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
