He said the country´s political course is in confusion as two separate deals are functioning in parallel manner. [break]
"There are two schools of thought -- first is that we can move ahead as per the seven-point agreement while the second is that the agreement should be immediately scrapped and the future course should be based on five-point deal," Bhattarai said at a function in Kathmandu on Friday. "Now we should stop this situation and move ahead as per the five-point deal."
Dahal and Khanal inked the seven-point pact to pave the way for Maoist-UML coalition just ahead of Khanal´s election to the prime ministerial post on February 3.
The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC), the prime minister´s rival faction in his own party, UML, and the Madhes-based parties have been insisting that the seven-point agreement should be annuled arguing that the agreement is intended at polarizing the politics into communist and non-communist forces.
He said formation of a national consensus government is the need of the hour to successfully accomplish the major tasks of constitution writing and the peace process.
"It has been proved in the last three years that we cannot accomplish the twin task through majority governments therefore we must form a consensus government this time," he added.
NC parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Paudel claimed that both the peace process and statute drafting were stalled because Maoists are reluctant to expedite the tasks of peace process sincerely.
"We (NC) have been insisting on expediting the peace process but the Maoist leaders are always for power sharing," said Paudel.
UML General Secretary Ishwar Pokharel said there is no point forming new government again if the thorny issues related to the peace process aren´t resolved. JP Gupta of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum (Republican) said the political parties need to focus their efforts on settling the core issues of army integration.
Expressing serious concern toward the lack of progress in the peace process, Speaker Subas Nembang pressed the major party leaders to settle the contentious issues related to army integration at the earliest.
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