Kathmandu, May 14:

Political leaders today said restructuring the state into a federal system could solve problems faced by the deprived communities of the nation.

This was stated at an interaction on Issue of Inclusion in Constituent Assembly organised by the INSEC Central regional office Kathmandu, here, today.

General secretary of Nepali Congress (Democratic), Bimalendra Nidhi, opined that the state should go for federal system instead of present unitary and centralised state mechanism.

Stating that his party was also for federal system he said the election system, however, needs to be mixed.

Yadav further said no party is clear about the modality of constituent assembly. “Our party is for Federal Democratic Republic.” Bharat Bimal Yadav of Nepal Sadbhawana Party (Anandi Devi) also said federal system can only solve the issues of inclusion. Yadav also demanded that the problem of citizenship certificates should be solved before going to the election to constituent assembly.

An expert, Vijay Kant Karna, presenting a paper on Constitution Assembly: Concept for discussion said participation of women, Janajatis, Dalits and Madhesi people is not possible under present political and legislative structure. To create new structure in political system is very pertinent for participation of all disadvantaged groups.

Since 237 years Nepal has been practicing unitary political and cultural system that tried to destroy plural, socio-cultural structure, the paper said.

According to Karna’s paper some of the policies introduced to consolidated political and cultural power in the hands of dominant hill Brahmin and Chhetris community include imposition of monolingual policy, state sponsored migration, denial of citizenship rights, destruction and negligence of cultural heritage sites other than Khas and creation of private army (Royal Nepalese Army).

The paper added that de-recognition of culture of other communities except Khas, considering Hindu religion as state religion and creating a political and administrative system to debar disadvantaged groups were also adopted in the past.

Arjun Narsingh KC of Nepali Congress said his party was seriously discussing about inclusion and the restructuring of the state.