By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Nepal’s constituent assembly election may be postponed again, with the state media Sunday saying the Maoists and their Communist allies have agreed to hold the crucial polls in the next Nepali calendar year.
Maoist chief Prachanda held talks Sunday with Madhav Kumar Nepal, chief of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), the second largest party in the government, in a bid to end the impasse gripping the country since September when the Maoists quit the government.
Both leaders agreed to hold the twice-deferred constituent assembly election, which will write a new pro-people constitution for Nepal, to Jeth, the first month of the Nepali New Year starting April 13, Nepal Television said.
Earlier, the UML chief had been calling for elections by the end of the current Nepali year, saying any further postponement would unleash anarchy.
Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has also been promising foreign envoys that the election would be held by early April.
But now, if the two Left leaders have their way, the election would be deferred to late April or early May.
Since 1950, when a pro-democracy movement forced the then Rana rulers to lift the ban on political parties, Nepalis have been demanding a constituent assembly election.
The Maoists began an insurgency in 1996 demanding the election and fought a guerrilla war for 10 years.
It was only last year, after the ouster of King Gyanendra’s army-backed regime that the new government of seven opposition parties agreed to hold the election.
However, the polls were not held last year. Scheduled in June, it had to be put off due to what many saw as the government’s lack of seriousness besides growing lawlessness in the Terai plains in the south.
A fresh November date was also scrapped, this time due to the Maoist demand that the king be sacked first and a fully proportional electoral system be adopted.
The second postponement brought the Koirala government into disrepute with the international community, which said it was disappointed and sought early polls.
Though a cornered Koirala said he would hold the exercise by mid-April, given the government and the parties’ dismal performance record, it remains to be seen if the pledge will be kept.