By IANS
Kathmandu : Nepal's historic constituent assembly election, which will decide the fate of King Gyanendra and the royal family and is expected to bring stability and progress in the insurgency-hit country, will be held on Nov 22, the government announced Sunday.
"The cabinet is confident that the election can be held on Nov 22," said Information and Communications Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is also the government spokesman, after a nearly two-hour-long cabinet meeting.
Mahara said it was also decided to review the report of a commission formed to add new constituencies.
The commission had come in for severe criticism from legislators from the Terai plains, who had paralysed parliament for over six weeks with stormy protests, demanding the panel be scrapped.
Mahara said the commission will be given three weeks to review its report.
Coming under severe criticism from his coalition partners for failing to hold the promised election on June 20, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had to amend the fledgling constitution after just five months, as it had indicated a June election, and had to call two cabinet meetings to decide the new date.
The cabinet meeting was held in the prime minister's office at Singh Durbar and not at his residence, from where Koirala has been conducting his government due to ill health.
The octogenarian leader left after half an hour as he needed bottled oxygen.
The announcement of the poll date was expected last Thursday but following Nepal's history of infighting, the parties could not reach a consensus and deputed a committee of senior members to come up with acceptable dates.
The Maoists and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, hold Koirala solely responsible for the delay in conducting the poll, doubting his intentions.
Though the Maoists began an armed revolt in 1996, demanding a constituent assembly election – electing a special assembly that will seal the fate of the 238-year-old royalty – Koirala's Nepali Congress government had been steadfastly rejecting the demand.
Only after King Gyanendra tried to seize absolute power in 2005 and waged a war on the parties did Koirala agree to the poll and form a secret understanding with the rebels.
However, even after the royal regime fell and Koirala became head of the new coalition government, he has frequently advocated retaining a ceremonial monarch without real powers.
His recent remark that if King Gyanendra and Crown Prince Paras abdicated in favour of the monarch's five-year-old grandson, people could forgive the royal excesses and agree to keep monarchy greatly angered the Maoists.
The last general election was held in 1999. Since then, Koirala's protégé Sher Bahadur Deuba was sacked twice for failing to hold elections due to the growing insurgency.
Since 1999, five successive governments have failed to conduct the exercise, including the king himself, whose municipal elections last year escalated his downfall.
However, it remains to be seen if the November date will be kept.
The Terai plains have become a bubbling cauldron of crime and violence with armed gangs creating havoc.
This month alone, six Maoists were killed as the rebels started reaping the harvest of the armed revolution they had sown.
Since this year, nearly 90 people have been killed in the plains.
Even as the government announced the new date in Kathmandu, Maoists went on a rampage in eastern Terai, calling a three-day closure in Saptari district and an indefinite shutdown in Morang and Sunsari.
The call came after one of their Saptari leaders, Govinda Chaudhary, was killed Saturday by a band of former Maoists.
Enraged Maoists went on the warpath in Saptari, vandalising nearly a dozen trucks, buses and cars, and called a three-day closure.
They also shut down Morang and Sunsari district indefinitely from Sunday.
The vandalisation brought out an angry response from truckers who said they too were calling an indefinite strike till the government provided security.