Constitution Amendment Bill has been endorsed by the Legislature-Parliament on Saturday night to change the newly promulgated Constitution of Nepal. The Indian External Affairs Ministry extended its support for Nepal’s legislative process, and said “We hope that other outstanding issues are similarly addressed in a constructive spirit”, The Hindu reported. Find us on Facebook too!
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Nepal’s ethnic minorities have rejected a constitutional amendment, dashing hopes of an end to a political crisis that has led to fuel shortages and hampered deliveries of relief materials to survivors of last year’s earthquakes.
As many as 24 proposals were filed by more than 100 lawmakers of different parties, seeking to amend the bill, which was endorsed in the House after incorporating the proposal registered by Rijal and Mansoor.
The agitating community that shares strong cultural and family bonds with India is demanding demarcation of provinces, fixing of electoral constituencies on the basis of population and proportional representation, and have launched a protest for months that has claimed at least 55 lives.
The leaders of the Madhesis told IANS that they would hold a meeting on Sunday and come up with an official position on amendment to the constitution undertaken by the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, UCPN-Maoist and other fringe parties.
Though the amendment was made on the name of addressing the concerns of the agitating Madhes based parties, the lawmakers affiliated to the agitating Madhes based parties have still been protesting the amendment.
The government has promised to set up a high-level political committee to redraw within three months the provincial boundaries in ways acceptable to Madhesis as well as other ethnic groups.
“But it has not addressed the core issue of creating two provinces for Madhesi people on the 1200-km-long plains of Nepal bordering India”, said Rajendra Mahato of UMDF pledging to continue struggle for attaining the provinces for the Madhesi people.
The killing of three persons in Rangeli Municipality of Morang district few days ago during police firing was a tragic incident which could have been avoided if the government tried to build an atmosphere of consensus, Yadav pointed out.
The amendment was backed by the ruling coalition and main opposition party.
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But the Madhesis are opposed to splitting their region into more than two provinces, as the government plan envisages, saying it will scupper their chances of controlling the provincial governments.
