After a hiatus of two weeks, representatives of three major parties—the Nepali Congress (NC), the CPN-UML and the UCPN (Maoist)—and the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha are planning to resume talks on Friday to sort out remaining differences on the proposed revision of federal boundaries.

The meeting would be the first since the negotiations came to an abrupt halt on January 21 after the SLMM decided to dissolve its taskforce, saying “talks at taskforce level were over”.

Three major parties had sent one leader each in its taskforce and the SLMM had formed its own taskforce with three members. The six leaders had held as many as nine rounds of talks and made significant progress in narrowing down the differences.

The Morcha has, in principle, agreed to major parties’ proposal to revise the boundaries through the to-be-formed high-level political committee in three months. But differences still persist over the legality and Terms of Reference of the proposed mechanism.

“There has been an understanding to seek a meeting point from some options that were floated during our discussions in the past,” Mahantha Thakur, chairman of the Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party Chairman (TMLP), one of the constituents of the SLMM, told the Post.

Thakur said that there has been some positive development regarding finalisation of the ToR of the high level mechanism since his return from New Delhi last week.

On Monday, top leaders of the NC, UML and UCPN (Maoist) had agreed to revive the taskforce to resume talks.

“The delay in sorting out the issues will but complicate the negotiations. That is why we should continue negotiations,” said Thakur.

Taskforce members had claimed that they were “very close to a deal” on boundary issue.

The taskforce had met Prime Minister KP Oli with some options to end the row over legality and ToR of the mechanism. But PM Oli had refused to accept any of the options.

“We were hopeful of a deal as we had top leaders with few agreed options. But PM Oli was not even ready to listen to anything,” said Rajendra Shrestha, co-chair of Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal, an SLMM taskforce member.  

PM Oli’s aides said that he was angry after Morcha leaders demanded one more schedule in the constitution, outlining the modality and ToR of the mechanism.