"The prime minister and the Maoist chairman agreed that the cabinet should be expanded at the earliest, and decided to ask all parties to participate in the coalition to turn it into a national consensus government," the prime minister´s press advisor, Surya Thapa, said. [break]
According to Thapa, the leaders would hold talks with the political parties willing to join the government about the distribution of ministries and expand the cabinet "very soon". They have also decided to hold talks with the Nepali Congress (NC) and the MPRF-Democratic on a national consensus government.
The Maoist party has decided to hold a meeting of its top office bearers to nominate new ministers from the party, while the UML has entrusted the prime minister with the task of inducting the party leaders into his cabinet.
Thapa said that the leaders also talked about the modality of integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants, and speeding up the constitution drafting process in the Constitutional Committee (CC) of the Constituent Assembly.
Maoist chairman Dahal has shown unwillingness to continue as the head of the subcommittee formed to sort out the contentious issues pertaining to the constitution. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Bharat Mohan Adhikari, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara, and Maoist Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya were present at the meeting.
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