Kathmandu: Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal will not resign unless there is a "guarantee" for the formation of a national consensus government and an agreement is made with the Maoists on key issues, a minister has said.
"Unless there is guarantee to forming a national consensus government to draft the new Constitution, Prime Minister Nepal is not going to resign," Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Singh Bhandari said.
The Prime Minister will immediately resign once there is agreement on the key issues, he pointed out. As the national consensus government is a must to complete the peace process and to draft the new Constitution, without reaching an understanding among all 25 political parties that have representation in the Parliament there is no point in quitting the government under the Maoists` pressure, he said.
He asked the Maoists to cooperate for working out a framework of the national consensus government with the decision as to who will lead such a government.
Before forming such a government there is a need to dissolve the paramilitary structure of the Young Communist League of the Maoists, returning the seized property and determining and size and modalities of the Maoist combatants for Army integration, he pointed out.
The Prime Minister will not resign to form another majority government, as the present coalition government itself is a majority one, he said adding only a national consensus government can resolve the political stalemate.
The government is serious about drafting the new Constitution and taking the peace process to the logical conclusion, he said.
However, Unified CPN-Maoist vice chairman Baburam Bhattarai has accused that the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are trying to obstruct the peace process by asking the Maoists to determine the number of combatants to be integrated into the Army.
Our party is against fixing the number of Maoists combatants to be integrated in the security forces before asking the combatants themselves for their choice, Bhattarai said after his meeting with United Nations Mission in Nepal chief Karin Landgren on Wednesday.
PTI
