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Divided SRC members agree to submit single final report

KATHMANDU, JAN 30 -
Despite several unresolved differences, the polarised SRC members have agreed after extended discussions that continued till late Monday night to submit a single final report, including a comprehensive note of dissent on all issues raised by the minority faction.

Until Monday afternoon, the divided SRC members were planning to submit two reports—one proposing a 11-state model with priority rights to dominant ethnic groups at the local level and the other pitching for a six-state model without priority rights to any particular ethnic group.

The two groups agreed to table a single report after SRC Chairman Madan Pariyar took the dissenting minority faction into confidence and proposed to put their views in details as note of dissent.

The advocates of the six-state model—Ramesh Dhungel (NC nominee), Sabitri Gurung (NC nominee) and Sarba Raj Khadka (CPN-UML nominee)—had registered an application on Sunday expressing serious disagreement with the working style of the majority camp led by Pariyar.

The three commissioners had lodged their dissatisfaction with the modus operandi of the body and its chairman, Pariyar.  The points discussed in the application included concerns over the provision of simple majority while voting, time given to the SRC—two months—biased nature of Chairman Pariyar and “bullying nature of other members”. The trio has prepared a six-state model. The majority and minority factions of the body could not find a meeting point on most issues including granting political priority rights, number of states, tiers of governance and residual power, among other issues.

On Thursday, the minority members walked out of the review meeting over differences on the definition of “review”. While the majority camp claimed that review would mean simply going over what had been achieved thus far, the minority camp claimed that a review should give members an opportunity to review their votes if they so wished.

Political sources told the Post that underneath the surface, the debate was caused by the tug-of-war over UML -nominee Bhogendra Jha’s vote. He had refused to vote on some issues previously, and there was some hope by the minority members that during the review process, they could win over his vote. But it was decided by the majority that reviewing votes would not be considered, causing Dhungel, Gurung and Khadka to walk out of the meeting, citing “undemocratic practice”. After the walkout, they were out of touch with the chairman until following Sunday when another heated discussion took place.

On Sunday, after handing over the application to Chairman Pariyar, they sat for the final meeting. The chairman decided to put it for a vote. The majority members—Krishna Hachhethu, Surendra Mahato, Stella Tamang, Malla K Sundar and Bhogendra Jha—refused to entertain the application and the chairman went with the majority. The minority members again walked out and prepared their own report.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the two opposition parties—NC and UML—on Monday took serious exception to the working procedures of the SRC. According to UML leader Surendra Pandey, the Commission should have taken decisions unanimously. “We had expected that the Commission would give some way out. But it followed suit of the political parties,” said Pandey. He added that the prime minister had asked the commissioners to come up with the report on time even if the friction among them would lead to submission of two reports. NC and UML leaders issued a warning on Friday after some of their representatives in the SRC complained that the members representing the Maoist and Madhesi parties were taking decisions “unilaterally”.

 On Monday itself, Dhungel submitted the nine-point application to the Prime Minister’s Office. The minority members had decided to move forward separately following their meetings with the NC and UML leaders on Sunday night.

Posted on: 2012-01-31 08:11

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