Kathmandu, December 5:

Nepali Congress leader Sujata Koirala today said her party would oppose the idea of a federal structure in the elections to a constituent assembly.

“NC does not support the agenda of a federal system. We should not invite more problems in the country,” she said. She was addressing a seminar on inclusive democracy in Nepal, organised by the NC, CPN-UML and the Swedish Left Party.

“Nepal lies between two giant nations and we need to take into consideration the variety of ethnic groups and language communities before opting for any popular slogan,” she said. “Nepal is a small country with many ethnic groups, cultures and religions, as such a federal set-up is not suitable here,” she said. Instead of establishing a federal structure, we should focus on decentralisation, she added.

“We should strengthen the old system of 14 zones and let the elected governor of each zone maintain law and order in the respective area, instead of centralising everything in the capital and ruling the whole country from Singha Durbar,” she said.