Nepal's parties fail to reach consensus on constitution despite looming deadline

Nepal's political parties have failed to iron out any solution to the contentious issues concerning constitution drafting within the period provided by the Constituent Assembly (CA), party leaders said on Monday.

The CA on Thursday gave the parties four days to forge a consensus in the hope of introducing a draft constitution by Jan. 22.

But with parties failing to do so, the chances of bringing even the preliminary draft of a new constitution has ended, which will likely deepen the political crisis in the Himalayan country.

Parties have just less than two weeks to meet the deadline but there has not been any substantial progress on key issues of the new constitution, Nepal's Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subash Chandra Nembang earlier said.

The next CA meeting is scheduled on Tuesday which is likely to witness a heated debate between the ruling and opposition parties. The ruling parties are likely to demand a start to the process of reaching a consensus, while the opposition front has already blocked it.

The failure in forging a consensus is likely to increase the tension between ruling and opposition parties. The opposition parties have called a strike on Tuesday in the capital to press the ruling parties to accept their demands. Endi