• Want women to take up posts

• Committee chiefs to be sworn in on Wednesday

Kathmandu, June 23:

UML leader and Member of Parliament (MP) Bharat Mohan Adhikari today decided not to contest for the post of the chairman of the newly formed Parliamentary Hearing Committee (PHC). As to who will fill up the post is unclear, pending applications.

Another MP, Ram Nath Adhikari, of the NC who was supposed to head the Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, has also backed off. It is also not clear who will take up the post. Vice-president of the Multiparty Women’s Caucus (MWC) Uma Adhikary said the MPs backed off from the race following the MWC’s pressure and criticism for no including women in the committees. The duo said “it would be better if women are appointed in their places.”

Committee chiefs who were formally declared elected today will be sworn in on Wedneday after PM Girija Prasad Koirala returns from Bangkok.

The chiefs of the ten Parliamentary Committees were picked up yesterday after a consensus among all the parliamentary parties on the issue. There is no nominee from the Nepal Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (NWPP) and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi) (NSP-A).

The NC got three committees — the LJPAC, Finance Committee and and State Affairs Committee (SAC). While Ram Nath Adhikari had opted out, Smriti Narayan Chaudhari and Hridyaram Thani will head the Finance and SAC.

The UML got two committees — Population and Social Committee (PSC) and Natural Resources Committee (NRC).

They will be headed by MPs Birodh Khatiwada and Prakash Jwala respectively.

The NC (D) also got three committees — Development Committee, Foreign and Human Rights Committee and Environment and Conservation (ECC). They will be headed by MPs Tank Rai, Narendra Bahadur Bom and Mahendra Yadav respectively.

The Janamorcha Nepal got Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which will be headed by MP Chitra Bahadur KC.

Meanwhile, women leaders and activists today gheraoed the central offices of NSP-A and Janamorcha Nepal demanding the implementation of the HoR proclamation regarding women. Urmila Pandey of the NSP-A and Ganga Belbasi of Janamorcha Nepal submitted separate memorandums to Bharat Bimal Yadav, the party’s vice-president and Amik Sherchan, the deputy prime minister.

NC lawmakers’ meet deferred

KATHMANDU: The Nepali Congress (NC) Parliamentary Party (PP) Committee meeting, which was scheduled to be held on Friday,

has been deferred until the arrival of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. “The meeting has now been deferred until PM Koirala returns (from Bangkok). That will ensure that we can speak our hearts out to him,” said NC PP member Surendra Chaudhary, while talking to The Himalayan Times. He said that “since the nation is now confronted with serious issues like the dissolution of the House of Representatives, “it is natural for us to debate on the issue in front of our leader.”

“We expect to find a way out of the current scenario whereby the Prime Minister has signed an 8-point pact (with the rebels) while not many of us agree on its contents.” — HNS