Bhattarai made the announcement in the presence of representatives from 17 fringe political parties who met him at his office on Saturday to submit a memorandum demanding that the peace process and constitution writing be concluded before the expiry of Constituent Assembly (CA)´s tenure on May 27.[break]
According to a participant Kapil Pokharel of CPN-ML, the prime minister said so after one of the members of the delegation, Hukum Bahadur Lama, of Nepal Squatters´ Party Democratic, enquired about the government´s plan of removing squatters from various places in Kathmandu.
"The prime minister assured the representative that squatters will be removed only after offering them an alternative," said a press note issued by the prime minister´s office. "At first, the government will identify the genuine landless people and then they will be offered a sum of Rs 15,000 as an immediate support."
The prime minister clarified that the government is ready to make alternative arrangements for genuine landless people but will show no sympathy toward those who have been posing as landless just to capture public land.
On peace and constitution, the prime minister assured the representatives that the CA will certainly promulgate new constitution by May 27 and that there is no need of further extending the tenure of the CA.
He urged the representatives from various political parties to come together, leaving aside their ideological differences, to settle some crucial issues such as constitution writing and peace process.
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