A joint meeting of the NC Central Working Committee and Parliamentary Party members held at Singha Durbar Sunday made the decision, arguing that this could be the most democratic method to resolve the issue surrounding the names of provinces.[break]
The NC´s proposal comes in the wake of parties remaining at odd on the issue as the Maoists and Madhes-based parties are pushing hard for federal provinces based on single-identity.
Talking to Republica, NC CWC and PP member Dhan Raj Gurung said they had a common view that provincial assemblies should be given the authority to pick the name of their respective provinces through a democratic process. “We decided to float the proposal to avoid prolonged differences among major parties on the issue,” he said.
NC leaders have been arguing that the party should oppose any move to name the provinces based on identity of particular ethnic group or caste. “As we are going to embrace a federal structure, we should put trust on provincial assemblies and let them decide the name for their respective provinces,” Gurung further said.
The NC leaders also stood averse to the idea of giving provinces options of names they can select from.
According to NC CWC and PP member Gagan Thapa, most of those who spoke in the meeting argued that NC should continue to hold negotiations to decide on the number and boundary of provinces. “Majority of them have stood for a maximum of 11 provinces if it was possible to reach consensus among parties on that number,” he further said.
NC Vice President Ram Chandra Paudel had briefed the progresses being made in various inter-party meetings. The leaders complained about the party leadership changing the party´s stance, mainly on federalism, during the negotiations.
Paudel, however, claimed during the meeting that NC had not changed its stance on issues related to federalism. “We have not given up our principal stand that all provinces should be multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. We have only shown flexibility on the number of provinces in an effort to reach consensus,” Paudel had said.
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