Kathmandu, January 20

The Nepali Congress today proposed to allocate four National Assembly seats for two Madhesi parties — the Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal in Province 2 and two for itself.

NC leaders Gopal Man Shrestha, Ram Sharan Mahat, Ananda Prasad Dhungana, Minendra Rijal and Umakant Chaudhary held talks with the two Madhesi parties. The FSF-N was represented by Rajendra Shrestha, Renu Yadav and Ram Sahay Yadav and the RJP-N by Brikhesh Chandra Lal, Sarvendranath Shukla and Keshav Jha.

Keshav Jha said the Madhesi parties told the NC leaders that they would win four NA seats in Province 2 on their own and if they had to forge an alliance with the NC then the NC should allocate five seats for them. Jha said the two sides agreed to hold more meetings after consulting their respective top leaders.

Jha said the two Madhesi parties were not winning any seat in other provinces, particularly Provinces 1, 5 and 7 and the NC did not need their support to win any seat in those provinces.

NC leader Dhungana said if an alliance was forged with the FSF-N and RJP-N in Province 2, the alliance could win six National Assembly seats. “But we are also discussing cooperation in other provinces with the two Madhesi parties. In other provinces, they are not in a position to win seats but they could support us,” Dhungana added.

“We have proposed to allocate two NA seats for each of our three parties — the NC, FSF-N and the RJP-N — but the two Madhesi parties have proposed just one seat for us,” he added.

He said NC leaders told the Madhesi leaders that both sides had suffered losses in the provincial and parliamentary elections due to lack of electoral alliance and they should not repeat the same mistake this time. “We have told the Madhesi leaders that we need to go together in the days ahead and should remain partners of the democratic alliance,” Dhungana added. He said if the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC united, there would virtually be a two-party system in the country with the NC leading the opposition forces and hence other democratic forces including the FSF-N and the RJP-N needed to be partners of a democratic alliance led by the NC.

RJP-N leader Brikhesh Chandra Lal said if the three parties forged an alliance it would be a good start for the democratic forces as far as future collaboration was concerned.

Nepali Congress leader Bimalendra Nidhi said Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had consulted him and other leaders of the party including Ramchandra Paudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula over the proposed alliance between the NC, FSF-N and the RJP-N for National Assembly elections.

“We agreed that there should be an alliance among the three parties to strengthen the opposition,” he added.