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Nepali opposition warns of political conflict, polarization if constitution draft through voting

Xinhua, January 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

Chairman of the Nepal's opposition party, the UCPN (Maoist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has warned that country would face another political conflict if the new constitution is promulgated without forging consensus with the opposition parties.

As Nepal's political parties have just three days left to meet the deadline of Jan. 22, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Dahal, who is also the former prime minister, said Monday that last-ditch efforts are underway to forge consensus on thorny issues concerning the new constitution.

Chairman Dahal said that country will go into another form of political polarization if the statute is drafted through voting without the consent of the opposition parties.

"We are still hopeful that the statute can be issued in consensus but now our realization is that the ruling parties have got backtracked from the past agreements reached earlier between them and us," Dahal told reporters in Kathmandu.

The opposition leader's remarks came at a time as the ruling parties -- Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) and opposition parties have failed to hammer out the outstanding issues of the new statute despite rounds of cross- party talks over the past few months.

"We are inching closer toward consensus on some debated issues such as form of judiciary and electoral system but still not able to find a way out to resolve the form of governance and federalism, " Dahal said.

A crucial one-on-one meeting between opposition party chairman Dahal and ruling party--CPN (UML) chairman KP Sharma Oli didn't bear any fruit toward resolving the contentious issues on Monday morning.

The ruling parties -- NC and UML have stressed on preparing preliminary draft of a new constitution on the basis of voting while opposition parties are sticking on their stance that there should be consensus among parties.

The nomenclature and delineation of federal provinces have emerged as the most contentious issue in the drafting of the new constitution. Endi