Kathmandu: Deputy Premier and prominent Nepali Congress leader Sujata Koirala on Saturday proposed a referendum to decide whether Nepal should have a federal or unitary system of governance under the new constitution.
Though her own party is pinning for a federal structure in the new constitutional set up, Koirala said her opposition to the decision was her personal view.
"The major political parties have committed a blunder by making a decision regarding federalism in a haste," Koirala, who is also the Foreign Minister, said
Nepal's Interim Constitution has in principle converted the country into a federal state with the Rastriya Janamorcha the only political party in the Constituent Assembly that is opposed to the concept.
"Even in the situation that we cannot backtrack from the decision to declare federal structure, we should opt for small number of federal states, maximum up to 5, not 15 or 16 as suggested by major parties," Koirala said.
She said a small country like Nepal should not be converted into a federal state as it may divide the nation.
"We can work out decentralisation of power instead of adopting federalism," she said during an interaction with reporters.
"As it was very important that we should know whether people actually want federalism or not the matter should be decided through referendum," she said. "We should make a constitution to keep national integrity intact, not to disintegrate the country," Koirala said, adding: "I don't agree with the policy followed by my party
to accept federalism".
On whether there was enough time for conducting a referendum, she favoured the deadline for drafting the constitution to be postponed a few months.
The political parties have set May 28, 2010 as a deadline to draft the new constitution.
She also underlined the need to follow the politics of cooperation, collaboration and consensus in order to establish peace and stability in the country and take the peace process to a logical end.
She also called the Maoists to come to join the UML led coalition government and to be a part of the high level political mechanism that is going to be formed soon.
"For the last time I call upon the Maoists to join the government and the political mechanism," she said.
The Maoists should mend their ways and should be sincere towards maintaining political stability in the country by halting their protests, she said.
She said India and China both want to sea peace and stability in Nepal, said Foreign Minister Koirala, who has just returned from a week long visit to China.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, January 02, 2010, 16:41