Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota has stressed the need for consensus among all political parties on the sensitive national issues like accepting or rejecting the American grant Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
Speaking with media persons after the all-party meeting called by him on Monday, the Speaker said that his role was like of an umpire on the issue. “I am like an umpire on the MCC, the parties have to decide whether it should be accepted or rejected,” he said.
He had summoned the all-party meeting for today immediately after the impeachment motion was registered against the Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher JB Rana to discuss the issues among the parties representing the parliament. However, the main opposition CPN-UML did not attend the meeting today.
The Speaker said that the leaders were ready to convince the opposition UML for smooth House session.
The House of Representatives is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. It is said that the draft of the MCC will be tabled in the session.
“Consensus based settlement can provide better solutions to the issues of national interest, I will not obstruct tabling of the bill draft in the parliament if there is consensus among the political parties,” the Speaker said.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and top leaders of all five ruling coalition and other parties participated in the meeting held at Singha Durbar.
Issues like impeachment, House obstruction and the MCC were discussed in the meeting.
The UML is unhappy with the role the Speaker played during the party split and has been obstructing the House sessions regularly.
Jibanram Shrestha, Chief Whip of the ruling CPN (Unified Socialist), said that they discussed contemporary issues in the meeting. “Important bills like the citizenship and others are pending in the House, we talked how the House procedures could be run smoothly to endorse all the pending bills,” he said.
Unhappy with the opposition UML for boycotting the all-party meet, Shrestha said it was an unfortunate move of the UML.
“The parties have agreed to convince the opposition to resume the House sessions smoothly,” he added.
He said that the meeting was fruitful on developing political consensus among the coalition parties.
However, the parliamentary party meeting of the UML also held on Monday decided to continue the House obstruction even on Wednesday.
According to the leaders who participated in the meeting, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba clearly asked the leaders to get ready to endorse the MCC bill from the House.
Durga Paudel of Rastriya Janamorcha said, “In the meeting, the PM said the issue of the MCC should be taken to a conclusion.”
Source : TRN,
