Thaindian News

Kathmandu, May 12 (IANS) With only 16 days left to write a new constitution, Nepal’s beleaguered Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal Thursday rushed back home, cutting short a foreign junket and seeking one more year to complete the task.

Under public fire for junketing in Turkey even as political turmoil mounted home, the worried Nepali prime minister rushed back to Kathmandu after reports that his own party men were conspiring with ruling allies and the opposition to topple him.

Immediately after returning home, Khanal held consultations with Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, seeking his approval to extend the May 28 deadline for enforcing the new constitution by one more year.

Soon after that, he also met the 27 parties in parliament seeking their approval for the extension. The smaller parties, however, said the Khanal government had failed to discharge its responsibilities and there was no reason to grant it additional time.

A worried Khanal then called a cabinet meeting where, backed by his Maoist allies, it was decided to amend the interim constitution and seek more time for the new constitution.

Law and Justice Minister Prabhu Shah will table the amendment proposal at the parliament secretariat. If the proposal is endorsed by two-thirds majority in the 601-seat house, the government will get one more year to finish drafting the new constitution by May 28, 2012.

The new constitution, that is expected to consolidate Nepal, once the only Hindu kingdom in the world, as a secular, federal republic, was originally to have been promulgated by May 28, 2010. However, it could not be completed as the major parties squandered away two years fighting for power.

Last May, the deadline was extended to May 28, 2011 after a midnight standoff in parliament. To get the extension, the then prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal had to resign eventually.

Fresh political uncertainty began to grow in Nepal with speculation that Khanal’s days as prime minister were numbered.

He became prime minister in February, after signing a secret pact with the Maoists, to the anger of his own party.

Now some of his own party members are calling for his ouster, a demand that Khanal rejected Thursday, saying he was not going to resign.

Besides the new constitution, the peace process also remains deadlocked. In 2006, Nepal heaved a sigh of relief after its Maoist rebels signed a peace pact and ended a decade of armed insurrection that had killed over 15,000.

However, five years later, the Maoists’ guerrilla army still remains and the government is in no state to hold general elections though the last polls were held 11 years ago.

While the parties may agree to bail out Khanal and extend the constitutional deadline, ethnic and social groups are redoubling pressure for the statute to be ready by May 28.

On May 7, civil society members kicked off a protest movement, demanding that the MPs, who had taken their salaries for three years, deliver or quit.

Ethnic organisations have begun to call general strikes to protest against the Khanal government’s inability to deliver.

While an ethnic protest paralysed almost 20 districts in the Terai plains Thursday, Nepal faces a nationwide general strike Friday.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)