Kathmandu, February 10
After a pretty long time, Prime Minister Prachanda has held talks with his predecessor and CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli.
The talks between Oli and Prachanda, who is also chair of the CPN-Maoist Centre, took place at the residence of Maoist leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha at the latter’s residence in Lalitpur.
Oli was accompanied with UML Vice-chair Bhim Rawal at Shrestha’s residence for the talks, which lasted about an hour.
During the discussions, Oli asked Prachanda to announce the date for local elections without delay and assure people that polls will indeed take place. For his part, Prachanda reiterated his commitment to conducting elections, a source said, adding that there will be a conducive environment for polls in the Madhesh if Constitution amendment happens before the polls.
Rawal, who also took part in the discussions, said they asked Prachanda to walk the talk by announce the date for elections. He said: We told Prachanda not to change the topic by raising the issue of Constitution amendment. We told him to announce the poll date instead.
The talks centred on polls, though no clear commitment came from Prime Minister, Rawal informed.
On the occasion, Oli promised to help the Parliament pass election-related Bills.
Talking to Onlinekhabar after the discussions, Rawal said: Prime Minister is still unclear. He said poll preparations are underway, while we said we want him to announce the poll-date, not just preparations. In fact, today we drew the government’s attention towards elections.
Prime Minister had said he will announce poll-date after talks with the United Democratic Madheshi Front and the UML. While the front has been pressing the government not to announce election-date without amending the Constitution, the UML has been calling for announcement of poll-date first.
