KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress (NC) Parliamentary Party (PP) leader Ram Chandra Paudel today told a PP meeting that the government enjoys his party’s “unwavering support” despite grievances against its leadership.

Addressing the first PP meeting after the demise of NC president Girija Prasad Koirala, Paudel hinted at the party’s compulsion to support the government. He, however, did not say what the compulsions were.

“Although we have many grievances against the government leadership and its working style, we should not withdraw support to this government now. Rather, we should firmly see to it that a no-trust motion against the government, if the opposition party moves in parliament, is defeated,” sources quoted Paudel as telling the meet.

Accepting the CPN-UML’s “unilateral style” of running the government, Paudel said he will talk to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal about “correcting” the government’s working style.

According to Constituent Assembly (CA) member Pushpa Bhusal, over half-a-dozen CA members of the NC, complained that the ministries taken by their party were unable to work effectively due to the Finance Minister’s non-cooperation.

“Ministers, representing the NC, are unable to work because the Finance Minister is not releasing the budget of those ministries smoothly and on time.

The PM seems indifferent to this issue, as such, the NC leadership should take initiatives to correct the UML’s behaviour in the government,” Bhusal said.

CA members including Mina Pande, Ram Krishna Yadav, Uma Adhikari Regmi and Harshajit Lama questioned the government’s performance.

They criticised PM Nepal and Finance Minister Surendra Pande for not releasing the budget in the ministries including the Local Development, Health and Population and Federal Affairs, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs and Culture, which are taken by the NC.

They also accused NC ministers of not being responsible to the party while making political appointments and being indifferent to concerns of party cadres.

Keshav Kumar Budhathoki of Jhapa and Keshav Kumar Rai of Bhojpur demanded the party withdraw its support to the UML-led government and take initiatives to form a new one in NC’s leadership. They said the present government could not take the peace process forward and obstructed the constitution writing process.

In the meeting, Paudel took consent from NC CA members to take initiatives to amend the Legislature Parliament Regulation on the purview of the Statutory Committee of parliament. All the Bills, tabled in the parliament, are discussed and finalised at the committee before they are approved by the full House as per the regulation.

“The subjective committees of the parliament don’t have much work to do while the Statutory Committee is unable to work due to mounting pressure.

The subjective committees concerned should, as such, be given the right to do all groundwork before putting a Bill for final

approval,” Paudel told

the meeting.

PP spokesperson Nabindra Raj Joshi said the meeting expressed commitment to effective participation of all NC CA members in the CA’s constitution writing process and the legislative committees.

Senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba was not present in today’s meeting, however.

CC meet on Wednesday

KATHMANDU: The first ever Central Committee (CC) meeting of the Nepali Congress (NC) since the demise of party president

Girija Prasad Koirala has been called for Wednesday. Koirala died on March 20.

Wednesday’s CC meeting is expected to discuss the party’s soon-to-be-held 12th general convention. NC has not been able to hold its general convention due to the disputes that surfaced after the merger of NC and NC (Democratic) two and half years ago. According to party sources, the CC meeting will discuss party’s future strategy and issues related to constitution-drafting.