“The commission must initiate comprehensive and nationwide debate on the topic so as to convince the people about the idea,” Poudel said in a program organized by Administrative Court and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung on Friday. “Distribution of maps by the Nepali Congress, UCPN (Maoist) and CPN-UML cannot be acceptable to people across the country.”
Urging political parties to take the issue of state restructuring more seriously, Poudel said, “Adopting federalism in Nepal is not as easy as it was in India or any other country. They delineated the provisions along cultural lines as they had distinct groups in Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Punjab. But that is not the case in Nepal, where people live in mixed communities. They can´t be separated,” he said.
All the major political parties except the NC have submitted their maps and concept papers to the Constituent Assembly committee on state restructuring. The committee has recently issued final deadline to the NC to submit its concept on state restructuring to the committee within the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, Poudel also strongly criticized Maoist´s idea of the right to self determination. Stating that the idea would be unacceptable, he asked, “Can India accept the right to self-determination in Kashmir? Can China accept right to self-determination in the case of Tibet?” Poudel urged Maoist leaders not to confuse people with tricky words. “One can´t incorporate such an impractical provision in the constitution merely because the Maoists have sold such dreams in the past,” he added.
CPN-UML General Secretary Ishwar Pokharel, Laxman Ghimire of NC, Chairman of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum Upendra Yadav, and Kashi Raj Dahal of the Administrative Court stressed on the need to forge consensus and adopt constitutionalism, rule of law, multiparty system and pluralism as a guiding principle in the new constitution.
Khim Lal Devkota of UCPN (Maoist), however, suggested that a new model can be adopted by reviewing not only the fall of communism but also the weaknesses of Westminster system and flaws of capitalistic system.
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