Saptari lawmakers against report of restructuring panel

Rajbiraj, January 17

CPN-Maoist Centre lawmakers representing Saptari today strongly condemned the report submitted to the government by the Local Bodies Restructuring Commission.

Organising a press meet in Rajbiraj, Saptari, today, Maoist lawmakers said the restructuring of the local bodies was impractical, unscientific and against local people’s sentiments. They demanded that the report be corrected immediately.

CPN-Maoist Centre parliamentarian from Saptari Constituency-2 Ashok Kumar Mandal, who is a CPN-MC politburo member, argued that the state restructuring commission had submitted the report without deliberations at the local level. “The state restructuring, carved out at a hotel in Kathmandu does not solve the problem of Saptari,” Mandal said.

Mandal charged that restructuring of the district was not done on the basis of demography, thus making it non-inclusive and against the proportional representation system.

Another Maoist politburo member and Saptari Constituency No 1 lawmaker Manpur Chaudhary argued that the commission had prepared the document in the Capital and submitted the report saying that there was no environment for discussion in Saptari.

Both lawmakers Mandal and Chaudhary warned of an agitation if the draft of the state restructuring was not revised and rectified.

They have pledged to raise the issue both at the party and in the Parliament.