President Yadav agreed to extend the deadline during his meetings with UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the former´s official residence in Shital Niwas, Tuesday morning. “What will you do if you failed to reach consensus by Thursday? What shall I do then?” Dahal quoted President Yadav as asking to him.[break]
While apprising the ongoing negotiations among the parties to forge consensus, Dahal had suggested the president to extend the deadline “Deadline must be extended in case we fail [to reach consensus on prime ministerial candidate]. We do not have any other options,” he told media persons after his meeting with the president.
President Yadav on Friday had called on political parties to nominate a prime ministerial candidate through consensus and come up with an appropriate proposal to form a new government by Thursday as per the Article 38 (1) of the Interim Constitution 2007. But there is no constitutional ground for the president to call parties to form majority government as provisioned in the Article 38 (2) in view of the absence of Legislature-Parliament.
Five days on, consensus on new prime ministerial candidate remains elusive as ruling parties have rejected to give government leadership to both Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, the two main opposition parties. The ruling UCPN (Maoist) has announced that they were ready to offer alternative candidate from within the ruling alliance if there was no consensus on Baburam Bhattarai, but not ready to give away leadership to the opposition parties.
Dahal also told mediapersons that parties would be able to reach consensus soon as discussions are focused on main issues.
Dahal had reached president´s office shortly after his meetings with Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar, who is also the coordinator of United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF), a key ally of the government. He also held a separate meeting with Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai on the latest political development and the formation of national consensus government.
Sources close to Dahal said his meetings with the president and various political leaders including Nepali Congress (NC) President Sushil Koirala was an attempt to ´normalize´ the situation following the decision of the cabinet and ruling Federal Democratic Republican Alliance to term the president´s move ´unconstitutional´ had vitiated the environment of talks.
Later in the afternoon, Prime Miniser Bhattarai also held separate meeting with President Yadav. "The meetings have now created conducive environment for talks among the parties," the sources said.
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