The decision which was taken at an informal meeting of the top leaders on Tuesday will be formally endorsed by the CC meeting called for Wednesday.[break]
Leaders said they decided to forward the thematic report of the state restructuring committee from the CC to the subcommittee, which is headed by UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
“The subcommittee will decide whether to form a commission or constitute an expert team to settle the issues related to state restructuring,” UML leader Surendra Pandey told reporters after the meeting.
Pandey said the leaders have reached an understanding to prepare the first integrated draft of the new constitution within the next two months so that it will be possible to forward it to the CA within three months.
The subcommittee is yet to settle other 22 contentious points in constitution writing. Major thorny issues yet to be resolved include the form of governance and the electoral model to be adopted in the new constitution.
According to a leader present at the meeting, former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal proposed extension of the subcommittee term by two months. The leaders agreed to table the proposal at the 64-member CC meeting on Wednesday and take the decision.
Nepali Congress (NC) parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Paudel said they held fruitful discussions on the written as well as unwritten aspects of the five-point deal reached between the three major political parties just ahead of extending the Constituent Assembly term.
“Apart from the five points mentioned in the deal, there are also many unwritten understandings and we at the meeting realized that the deal should be the basis for concluding the peace process, constitution writing and forging consensus,” Paudel said.
He said the tasks of the peace process should also be expedited by convening the meeting of the government´s special committee that oversees the tasks of the integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants.
The subcommittee brought down the number of disputes from 83 to 22 points before its term expired on May 27. The CC, which is mandated to settle the contentious points and prepare an integrated draft of new constitution, formed the Dahal-headed subcommittee with a view to expedite the task of dispute resolution.
Former Prime Minister Nepal, NC leader Paudel, Sadbhabana Party leader Laxman Lal Karna and lawmaker of CPN (Samyukta) Kalpana Rana are member of the five-member committee.
Khimlal Devkota of UCPN (Maoist), Radheshyam Adhikari of NC, Agni Kharel and Sapana Malla from CPN-UML and Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani of Rastriya Janashakti Party have been providing expert inputs to the subcommittee.
Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, Speaker Subas Nembang, Deputy Speaker Purna Subedi and CC Chairman Nilambar Acharya also attend the meeting as and when needed.
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