"We will not accept the proposal of building a political consensus over a period of three months. We want everything to be settled now," said Tarai Madhes Democratic Party Spokesperson Sarbendra Nath Shukla.
The leaders of the agitating Madhes-based parties also reiterated that forming a political committee or a parliamentary committee to settle the provincial delineation issues would also not be acceptable for them.
"We cannot understand the rationale behind asking three more months and forming a political committee to settle the issue of provincial boundaries.
UDMF rejects new amendment bill
We can wait for the due process of constitution amendment, but what would be amended should be settled now as part of a package deal," said Laxman Lal Karna, the co-chairman of Sadbhavana Party.
"We are ready to discuss any concrete proposal on delineation of provinces, but we are in no mood to accept the proposals intended to linger the issue," he added.
Earlier, the major three parties and others in the ruling coalition had decided to seek consent of the agitating parties to move forward the constitution amendment bill, which was already registered at the parliament. Likewise, the leaders from the three major parties have developed a common understanding of settling delineation issue through political consensus within three months.
According to a source close to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, the PM had discussed the same roadmap with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during his telephone conversations on Wednesday and Thursday.
The UDMF has been leading the agitation in Madhes districts since the last 110 days demanding changes in provincial delineation, constitutional guarantee for proportional representation in state mechanisms and delimitation of electoral constituencies on the basis of population. The UDMF has been protesting at highways and border checkpoints and southern neighbor India has been obstructing imports of the landlocked country citing the agitations at border checkpoints.
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