"Otherwise, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and other opposition parties will launch a ´massive´ protest that will eventually unseat Bhattarai from Baluwatar," Nepal told Republica at his residence in Koteswore just before his meeting with the prime minister.[break]
"For consensus, Bhattarai must step down," he said. Nepal also told the same thing to Bhattarai during their one-to-one meeting.
"It is in Bhattarai´s interest to quit the government because he can neither settle any constitutional crisis nor can he make any headway in political impasse," he said.
According to him, the new coalition, then, can take initiative to resolve the constitutional as well as political crisis "invited by the prime minister´s unilateral move to announce the fresh CA polls."
Though the prime minister announced fresh CA elections for November, there are constitutional obstacles to conduct polls, Nepal said, arguing that once the consensus government is formed, such a coalition can request the president to remove the constitutional barriers by using constitutional prerogative of removing constitutional difficulties.
Asked if the present government can do so, he ruled out any possibility accusing the prime minister of spoiling the atmosphere of mutual trust among the major political parties and pushing the country into a political and constitutional quagmire.
He also accused the prime minister of abusing his authority by announcing fresh CA polls without consent from other major political parties. "Announcing fresh CA polls is entirely different from that of announcing polls for general elections. Prime minister and a single party simply can´t take such a decision," he explained.
Nepal presented several options after the consensus government is formed - holding fresh CA polls, reinstatement of the dissolved CA for brief period and entrusting the transitional parliament with unresolved task, going for plebiscite to decide on major thorny issues, forming a high-level commission and holding a round-table conference to find a way out.
He said once the political parties come together, they can opt for one of the options.
Asked what he thinks is the better one among the options discussed, he said he is studying and weighing various aspects of the alternatives available. "The UML is yet to discuss and form its stance on the options because the need of the hour is to first form the consensus government," he further added.
´No CA reinstatement without first settling thorny issues in constitution´
Nepal, however, made it clear that the UML will simply turn down the proposal to reinstate the CA if there is no agreement in the contents of the new constitution beforehand.
"It is clear that there must be agreement on the thorny issues of constitution writing before we go for the reinstatement," he said. "Otherwise, we will simply not become ready for that."
Nepal also clearly stated that the new consensus government should be formed under the leadership of Nepali Congress, as per the five-point understanding reached between the parties. "Unlike in the past, it will not take long to form a consensus government, as we already have an understanding," he said.
He also came down heavily on UCPN (Maoist) Pushpa Kamal Dahal allegedly for remaining busy in provoking ethnic and indigenous communities to take to the streets and inciting intra-party divisions in the CPN-UML instead of sincerely concentrating his efforts on resolving the disputes.
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