National
Gandaki pitched as name for Province 4; Pokhara as capital
A parliamentary committee formed to study possible name and capital of Province 4 has floated four names.Lal Prasad Sharma
A parliamentary committee formed to study possible name and capital of Province 4 has floated four names.
The committee, headed by senior-most member Bindu Kumar Thapa, presented its report to the Provincial Assembly on Monday after conducting a study in all 11 districts.
On the basis of feedback collected from people from
different walks of life, the committee proposed four names—Gandaki, Tamuwan Magarat, Gorkha and Dhaulagiri.
The committee, formed on March 26, gathered suggestions from around 751 people in all the districts over the name and capital of the province and prepared the report. The panel has also based its report on the suggestions from various social organisations, major political parties in the assembly and memorandums submitted to it.
Province 4 is likely to get its name Gandaki as the then CPN-UML, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Rastriya Janamorcha are in its favour. The erstwhile CPN (Maoist Centre) remained mute, while the Naya Shakti Party-Nepal demanded that the province be named Gandaki Tamuwan. The former UML and Maoist Centre have 27 and 12 seats respectively in the 60-member provincial assembly.
The NC (15) and the Rastriya Janamorcha (3) are other parties representing in the assembly. The constitution authorises the Provincial Assembly to name the province and declare its capital by two-thirds majority.
As per the report presented by the parliamentary committee, 45.4 percent respondents suggested that the province be named Gandaki, while 34.12 percent pressed for Tamuwan Magarat. Gorkha was the choice of 9.45 percent of the respondents, while the others opted for Dhaulagiri and other names.
Similarly, 93.87 percent respondents suggested designating Pokhara as its provincial capital where as 3.99 percent were in favour of Gorkha and other places.
The committee held interactions and collected opinions from people’s representatives, business persons, entrepreneurs, legal practitioners, journalists and general public in all 11 districts.