KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 20
The ruling coalition led by Sher Bahadur Deuba will move the Millennium Challenge Corporation deal in the Parliament only on the basis of consensus.
Nepali Congress leader Ramesh Lekhak said the ruling coalition had formed a three-member committee led by Jhalanath Khanal and the coalition would take a call after the committee's report. The other members on the panel are CPN-Maoist Centre leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki.
The Parliament has listed only a few ordinances for tomorrow's business, according to Spokesperson for the Parliament Secretariat Rojnath Pandey.
The main opposition party, CPN-UML, which has been obstructing House proceedings, will continue to do so tomorrow as well. UML leader Subas Chandra Nembang said the party's protest would continue as the issues raised by the UML were yet to be resolved.
"Neither the government nor Speaker Agni Sapkota has taken any initiative to address our concerns," Nembang said.
He said the speaker erred by not confirming the expulsion of 14 UML lawmakers, including Madhav Kumar Nepal, who later split the party and formed a separate party – CPN (Unified Socialist). Nembang said unlike in the past when the speaker would postpone House meetings after the main opposition party protested in the House, the speaker had ignored the protest and conducted the House business.
"Our protest has not hindered the government from doing anything," he said and added that the government passed the new fiscal budget and another fiscal bill amidst their protest. "Even on the first day of this session of Parliament, the government tabled new ordinances in the House amidst our protest," Nembang said. Asked what his party would do on the MCC deal, Nembang said the deal was signed by representatives of the NC and the CPN-MC when they were in power. It is their duty to ensure ratification of the deal, he added.
"The NC-led coalition has almost two-thirds votes in the House. If it wants, it can ratify the MCC deal," Nembang said.
He added that the UML, which had not signed the MCC deal, tabled it in the House as it believed in perpetual continuity of the government.
Meanwhile, Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal leader Baburam Bhattarai today said at a public programme that the ruling coalition, which had been successful in stopping Oli's regressive attempts, needed to forge a common stance vis-à-vis the MCC deal to ward off attempts to break the coalition from inside, as well as outside, the country.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 21, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
