KATHMANDU: The parliamentary party meeting of the ruling CPN-UML today decided that its Constituent Assembly (CA) members would air views in the CA full House on the need to form a State Restructuring Commission (SRC), as envisaged by the Interim Constitution.

The CA full House is scheduled to debate on the concept paper and preliminary report of the State Restructuring and Distribution of State Power (SRDSP) committee beginning tomorrow. It is the last thematic committee to submit its report to the CA full House.

Addressing the meeting in Singha Durbar today, party president Jhala Nath Khanal directed the party's CA members to demand the formation of the SRC, which should have been formed well before the SRDSP started its work, at the earliest.

"We have to raise our voice stressing the need to form the SRC in the CA full House," Khanal told his CA members, who had been demanding the party's clear stance on restructuring the state.

Khanal said the High-Level Political Mechanism had also discussed the urgency of the formation of the commission. "Although some of the parties are reluctant to form the commission, we have to push for this agenda," Khanal said, hinting at the UCPN-Maoist. He told the CA members to hold an "open-minded" debate on the number, names and boundaries of the federal units so that the SRDSP's report could be revised.

"Let's air our views stressing the need for the State Restructuring Commission to decide on those issues," Khanal said. The Prachanda-led government had formed the State Restructuring Commission led by Ganesh Gurung. However, it never got a complete shape.

The SRDSP committee last week proposed 14 federal units on ethnic/community basis and most of the UML CA members had strong reservations, saying that such federal units would not be sustainable and the UML members in the committee were influenced by the Maoist agenda.

"Restructuring the state is a very complex issue," Khanal said, "We can also suggest leaving this issue to the elected federal government that will be formed under the new constitution. The elected government can form a high-level commission to decide on it if we now fail to reach consensus," Khanal told the CA members.

He also directed the CA members to raise their voice against the "pre-emptive right to rule," proposed by the SRDSP committee. He said he would also discuss it informally with leaders of major parties.

"This (pre-emptive right to rule) is against the democratic principles and it curtails political rights of other communities," he said, adding: "The issue of pre-emptive right to rule will not arise if the federal units are not carved out on ethnic/community basis."

Earlier, some UML CA members had said the proposed 14 federal units would not be economically sustainable. CA members such as Pradip Gyawali, Shankar Pokharel and Bhim Rawal said the proposed federal units did not reflect the party's stance and they could not accept it.