Kathmandu Post

Nation»

Amid oppn disruption, govt also ‘boycotts’ House

KATHMANDU, JAN 22 -
Opposition parties obstructing the parliament to lobby hard for their agendas is an almost daily affair in Nepal. But the government itself “boycotting” the House is a rarely heard-of practice. The parliament on Sunday witnessed this unacceptable parliamentary practice.

Speaker Subas Nembang was forced to reschedule the House session after a row allocated to ministers remained empty. None of the 49-member government led by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai appeared in Sunday’s House session.

Opposition parties have been obstructing the House since January 17 to press the government against the decision to register land transacted through the parallel government run by the Maoist party during the conflict. In a ruling last week, Speaker Nembang had instructed the government to respond to the issue raised by opposition parties.

The absence of Cabinet ministers offered a new bait to the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML as their lawmakers again trapped the government by terming the absence a “gross negligence” and “contempt of the parliament”.

NC lawmaker Ramesh Lekhak said the government shut its eyes to the ruling and boycotted the parliament. A government unaccountable to the parliament doesn’t have the right to rule the country, he argued.

Later Nembang said the parliament cannot function in absence of ministers. Lawmakers of the ruling UCPN (Maoist) and opposition parties were seen exchanging jokes in the 15-minute gap before the session resumed.

Energy Minister Post Bahadur Bogati, Minister for Land Reforms Bhim Prasad Gautam, Minister for Science and Technology Kalpana Dhamala and State Minister for Finance Hariraj Limbu were present in the second sitting. But none of them could furnish any explanation before the House, forcing opposition lawmakers to continue their protest.

Minister Guatam, however, said it was not a government boycott. “We were busy in a ministerial level meeting called by the Prime Minister.

The government did not boycott the parliament,” he told reporters. “State ministers were supposed to attend today’s session. We rushed to the parliament from the meeting after none of the state ministers showed up.”

Congress lawmaker Shovakar Parajuli and UML lawmaker Bhim Rawal  assailed the government for “turning a blind eye to scrap the decision” to legitimise land transactions through “People’s Revolutionary Council” in the second sitting.

They argued that the parallel government run by the Maoists during the conflict was illegitimate.

In a counter-attack, Maoist lawmaker Ek Raj Bhandari said that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has recognised the existence of the Maoist parallel government.

Nembang postponed the House till Thursday. As the obstruction continues, solution to the House row doesn’t seems to be in immediate sight.

Posted on: 2012-01-23 08:21

---