Janardan Sharma of UCPN (Maoist), Prakash Sharan Mahat of Nepali Congress (NC), Surendra Pandey of CPN-UML and Dev Gurung of CPN-Maoist, among others, aired their views at an interaction participated by nearly 80 former CA members in Kathmandu on Sunday.[break]
Former Peace Minister Sharma, who is close to UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, said that CA reinstatement is one of the most viable solutions to end the protracted political stalemate. "Our party is for giving top priority to the [CA] reinstatement option," said Sharma. As the prime minister´s party, UCPN (Maoist) would claim officially that the party´s first priority is to hold fresh polls because the government has announced fresh CA polls. But Sharma didn´t hesitate to support the reinstatement proposal during an interaction among the former lawmakers.
A former energy minister Mahat expressed his wholehearted support for the former lawmakers who have been lobbying for CA reinstatement. In NC, former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has been pushing for reinstatement of the Assembly, while the party President Sushil Koirala is has reservations about this idea.
Pandey, a former finance minister, claimed that there is no option other than reinstating the CA to salvage the country from the present political morass.
"Presence of a legitimate legislative body has become a must for amending election-related provisions in the interim constitution and at present only the CA can play the role. So one can´t simply avoid CA to solve the stalemate in a legitimate way," UML Politburo member Pandey told Republica.
A section of political leaders have been arguing that president can give a way out to the stalemate by invoking the constitutional provision that allows the head of state to exercise his right to remove constitutional difficulties. But Pandey described the idea as unconstitutional one saying that only a legitimate legislative body can make amendment to the constitution.
The newly-formed CPN-Maoist party has been vociferously lobbying that any decision should be taken only through a round-table conference participated by major political parties as well as other major stakeholders.
However, CPN-Maoist Secretary Dev Gurung said during the interaction that his party wouldn´t stand against CA reinstatement if the option is acceptable to all other political forces.
NC´s former lawmaker Mohan Pandey, one of the leaders strongly lobbying for revival of the dissolved body, said that all the key speakers invited from the major political parties supported their movement without any reservation. "Also, most of nearly 80 former lawmakers who attended the interaction frankly stood in favor of the legislative body´s revival," said the NC´s youth leader. According to him, even the leaders who were against the idea of reviving the 601-member body have now "come to accept the proposal as the most pragmatic solution after realizing the ground realities."
The CA saw its demise on May 27 without promulgating new constitution as the political leaders kept on bickering over some of the thorniest disputes in constitution writing such as the system of governance and a federal set up.
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