Special committee revises federalism model, agrees to adopt seven-state 

Top leaders of major political parties on Friday agreed to federate the country into seven provinces. After a meeting of top leaders, the Constitution Drafting Committee forwarded the constitution bill with state demarcation to Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subash Nembang.

 A meeting of the special committee under Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (PDCC) revised the previously agreed six-state federal model and agreed to create a separate province in Karnali by including some Eastern districts of the region.

According to the PDCC Chairman and UCPN (Maoist) leader Baburam Bhattarai, the previously proposed provinces 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, will remain unchanged. He informed that the final demarcation of the provinces will be decided by the soon-to-be formed federal commission. 

Earlier in the day, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum -Loktantrik (MJF-L) Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar, one of the signatories of the 16-point agreement on constitution drafting, boycotted the meeting of four parties expressing his dissatisfaction with the new proposal. 

Earlier, the parties had decided to adopt six-state model which sparked widespread protests across the country especially in the Mid- and Far-Western region of the region. Karnali locals were staging demonstration demanding a separate province be created. 

However, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala was not in favour of delineating the country into seven states.