UML outlines election manifesto

Kathmandu, February 19:

The CPN-UML has decided to field party general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal from constituency number two of Kathmandu for the April 10 CA polls, even as the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) today finalised its closed-list for the proportional poll system.

The CPN-UML decision was formally declared at the gathering of party leaders and activists in Kathmandu today.

At the end of the party’s 17th central committee meeting on February 10, Nepal said he would contest the CA polls from two constituencies — Kathamndu and Gaur, from where he was elected twice to the previous House.

The UML leaders said the party will not forge any kind of electoral alliance with any party for all the ten constituencies in Kathmandu, three in Lalitpur and two in Bhaktapur.

Nepal said that the party would file the closed list of candidates at the Election Commission tomorrow.

Charging the Nepali Congress and Maoists with deferring the elections twice in the past, he added: “UML is no longer in the favour of sharing the burden of incompetence of others in the name of the seven party unity.”

UML standing committee member Ishwor Pokharel said the party could seek electoral alliance with other parties elsewhere in the country, but purely on the basis of the influence of the parties and the commitment of their candidates to the federal democratic republican order.

Coordinator of the UML manifesto drafting committee, Jhala Nath Khanal outlined the contents of the manifesto, which among others, stresses on direct election of parliament and the Prime Minister as the head of the government. He added that the UML manifesto calls for a provision of referendum to directly involve people in the decision-making process, secular state, total inclusive policy in all state organs, the Nepal Army, and tri-lingual policy-mother tongue at local level, Nepali as the official contact language, and English for international correspondence.

Promoting Nepal as transit point for Indo-China trade, construction highways and mountains and East-West electric railways are the other aspects of the UML manifesto.

Meanwhile, the CA polls mobilisation committee meeting of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said today it will register the names of 335 closed-list candidates at the Election Commission tomorrow for the PR poll system. Sources said party chairman Pashupati SJB Rana will contest from Sindhupalchowk constituency 3 .The Maoists could not finalise the closed list of candidates for the PR systeme today.