Nepal opposition announces fresh stir over charter

IANSKathmanduAs talks with ruling parties yielded no positive results for the past two months, Nepal’s opposition alliance announced second-phase protest programmes to exert pressure on the ruling parties for what they call a new constitution through all-party consensus, Xinhua reported.Concluding that the ruling parties - the Nepali Congress and CPN- UML - are not ready to budge from their stances on key debated issues of the new constitution, delineation and nomenclature of federal provinces, system of governance, electoral system and structure of judiciary, the UCPN (Maoist)-led 30-party alliance announced stern agitation programmes against the ruling parties.As part of their agitation programmes, the opposition parties have decided to hold a general strike from April 7 to 9 in the capital, chairman of the 30-party alliance Pushpa Kamal Dahal said in the statement. The opposition parties have also announced to shut down all government offices across the nation for four days beginning on April 3.They have also planned to obstruct Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, deputy prime ministers and ministers from entering to their offices and boycott the programmes to be organised by the prime minister from next week.Earlier, by organising a huge assembly in participation of tens and thousands of people in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu on February 28, the opposition alliance had completed its first phase agitation programmes.The opposition parties have been intensifying their agitation programmes objecting the ruling parties’ decision to settle the debated issues of the constitution through voting process in the constituent assembly (CA).Nepalese parties had missed the self-imposed deadline on January 25 for promulgating the new constitution through the CA as they couldn’t forge consensuson key debated issues.