Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 11:

Leaders of the seven-party alliance today said revival of the dissolved House of Representatives would be a beginning of progressive reforms in Nepal and the start of peaceful solution to the Maoist insurgency.

Speaking at a programme organised by Human Rights and Peace Society (HURPES), Nepali Congress central working committee member Mahesh Acharya said the presence of the House was a prerequisite to for progressive and democratic reforms in Nepali society and a way out of the ongoing conflict.

He said that the King had encroached the constitution and the Maoists were attacking democratic space after the political parties failed to run the people’s institutions properly when they were in power.

“The challenges before the alliance are to educate the people that Maoists’ extremism and the King’s authoritarianism both are harmful for the nation,” Acharya said, adding that democratic forces should beg the people’s forgiveness for mistakes they committed in the past.

CPN-UML central committee member Shankar Pokharel said that it was a positive development that the democratic forces had forged an alliance for the restoration of democracy within three months of the royal takeover.

“There is still a lingering feeling that other important agenda agreed upon by the alliance may not get prominence once the House is revived,” he said, adding it would be harmful in the long run if the movement focussed only on revival of the dissolved House.

Prakash Sharan Mahat of the Nepali Congress (Democratic) said his party and the others had joined the government under Article 127 of the constitution with a view to re-activating the constitution through parliamentary election, but the King did not want the election to take place.