Kathmandu, August 4

Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara today once again failed to forge consensus between the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and opposition parties — Nepali Congress and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal — to remove obstruction of the House of Representatives.

The HoR meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at 11:00am.

The house meeting was halted on July 10. Except for the meeting of July 24, which discussed an urgent motion of public importance related to floods and landslides in the country, House meetings have not been held properly. The meetings were either obstructed by the opposition or postponed with notices issued by the Parliament Secretariat.

The government doesn’t want to form a parliamentary panel to investigative two alleged cases of extrajudicial killings in Sarlahi district. Sarlahi district in-charge of the Netra Bikram Chand-led group Kumar Paudel was killed in an alleged encounter with police on June 20; and Saroj Narayan Singh of Ishwarpur Municipality was killed in police firing in a protest on the East-West Highway on June 30.

Opposition parties had insisted that a panel had to be formed because they were cases of human rights violation. “We don’t want support criminal activities, but we are raising this issue because there might be violation of human rights,” NC Whip Puspa Bhusal said.

Speaker Mahara today held discussion with NC Chief Whip Balkrishna Khand and NC deputy parliamentary leader Bijay Kumar Gachhadar. He also called RJP-N Chairperson Raj Kishor Yadav and lawmaker Laxman Lal Karna to discuss opening the House. Mahara also met NCP Chief Whip Dev Gurung and called NCP deputy parliamentary leader Subash Chandra Nembang on telephone.

But none of the leaders reached agreement. A source close to Speaker Mahara told THT that Mahara requested the ruling and opposition parties to make separate teams to discuss the agenda. Mahara told them that their teams could come up with conclusion of the agenda later. But he requested them to open the House for now. This proposal was neither accepted by the ruling party nor the opposition.

Separate and joint meetings will also be held tomorrow before the meeting schedule. “If  consensus is still elusive, the meeting of the House will be postponed,” said Dilli Malla, the press adviser to Mahara.