By IANS,
Kathmandu: With a possible constitutional crisis looming only eight days away, Nepal’s main opposition party, the Nepali Congress, Friday staged a massive show of might, redoubling the call for communist Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal to quit.
Thousands of cheering supporters gathered in the capital as the second-largest party in the country flayed the Maoists, the biggest partner in Khanal’s coalition government, accusing it of derailing the constitution and the peace process.
“The Maoists haven’t given up their arms lust,” former Nepali Congress minister Gopal Man Shrestha said.
“Five years after signing the peace pact, the peace process hasn’t progressed an inch. They still have their own weapons and their own army and have not returned the public property they captured,” he charged.
The Nepali Congress said the prime minister, who came to power in February after signing a clandestine pact with the Maoists, must resign to pave the way for a national government.
Outlining the party’s conditions, former home minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula said the Maoists would have to empty the 28 cantonments of their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and hand over its weapons to the government.
The Nepali Congress has given four days to the Maoists to agree on the number of PLA combatants who should be inducted in the Nepal Army and separate them from the rest.
The PLA has nearly 20,000 combatants and while the Nepali Congress says about 4,000-5,000 of them would be absorbed in the security forces, the Maoists are demanding 10,000.
They are also demanding large sums of money as compensation for senior PLA leaders.
The Nepali Congress has also sought the disbanding of the Maoists’ paramilitary organisation, the Young Communist League, and the return of all public property captured by the former rebels during their 10-year war.
While the opposition threw the gauntlet, the prime minister was busy wooing the smaller parties outside the ruling alliance.
Khanal, who deserted his old ally, the Nepali Congress, to become prime minister after forcing his party peer and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal to resign, is refusing to quit, claiming he has the support of two-thirds majority in parliament.
He has already asked parliament to give his government an extra year to complete the constitution, admitting the statute would not be ready by May 28.
While the Nepali Congress and some other minor parties have said they would vote against the proposal, Khanal might still get the two-thirds majority needed to win since the Maoists, the largest party, are backing him.
However, he stands in danger of being stabbed in the back by his own party men, just as he himself had done to come to power.
Various organisations have also redoubled pressure on the government, holding regular demonstrations in front of parliament and public places, demanding that the lawmakers complete the constitution by May 28 or return the salary and allowances they drew for three years.