According to the leaders attending the meeting, positive discussions were held in the meeting this morning regarding forging consensus on the disputed issues like the delineation of the federal provinces, the form of governance and citizenship provisions mentioned in the preliminary draft of the new constitution, based on the suggestions given by people on these issues.

After the meeting, UCPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal urged people not to go after the rumours that constitution was not coming which have been making rounds outside, stressing that serious and positive discussions were on in the Special Committee for sending a report to the CA today itself as far as possible and if not latest by tomorrow evening.

“Positive discussions are going on at the formal and informal level. We are committed to arriving at a conclusion to issue the constitution with the delineation of the provinces. Negative messages should not be send out and the people should not be misled just because it took one or two days more to settle the issues which have been discussed for the last eight years or so,” he said.

He further said that the issues on which the parties are agreed on have been incorporated in the draft with the help of the taskforce while at the same time continuing more discussions on the disagreed topics.

Committee chairperson Dr Baburam Bhattarai expressed his displeasure towards the media saying news with the message that talks failed were being disseminated by the media in the context of the ongoing efforts towards reaching consensus.

He added that homework was being done at the taskforce level including the top leaders as to how the suggestions given by hundreds of thousands of people could be incorporated and the draft revised.

"We have been urging the political parties to deliver a new constitution by mid-August, resolving the issue of demarcation of the federal states beforehand," said Dr Bhattaraiu, adding that he would like to disseminate the same message herewith.

Similarly, Nepali Congress Joint-General Secretary, Purna Bahadur Khadka shared that the discussions were ongoing on a positive note and preparations were intensified to send a report to the Constituent Assembly at the earliest.

Concern over the President's statement

Stating that works were in progress to draft a new draft of a new constitution based on the 16-point agreement reached amongst the four political parties on June 8, Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (Lokatantrik)'s General Secretary Jitendra Dev further said that it was also agreed within the 16-point consensus that Prime Minister Sushil Koirala was to draw the attention of the President Dr Ram Baran Yadav towards his statement about this agreement.

He was of the opinion that President Yadav ought to take into account his ceremonial position and make political remarks within this limitation.

The Special Committee was to submit the public feedbacks on the initial draft of the new constitution by Sunday. The next meeting of the Committee is slated to take place today itself. RSS