he major political have come up with another agreement- seven provinces- reversing the agreement of six provinces made 10 days back. The parties took this decision in view of the mounting dissent on the six province proposal. As per the fresh agreement, the province no 6 (of earlier proposal) has been split- the area east from Humla Karnali is named province no 6 and area west from Humla Karnali is named province no 7.
The province no 6 is the largest one. It was devised citing the grudges in the areas including Surkhet. However, the UCPN (Maoist) and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Loktantrik) has put forth note of dissent on it. Now the province number six includes Salyan, Surkhet, Dailekh, Jajarkot, Dolpa, Jumla, Kalikot, Mugu, Humla and western belt of Rukum. Similarly, the province no 7 has the districts as Kailali, Kanchanpur, Dadeldhuram, Doti, Achham, Bajura, and Darchula. The parties have kept intact the earlier agreement of province no 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. However, Thori VDC of Parsa district has been merged to Chitwan thereby including in province no 3. Coordinator of the special committee comprising top leaders of major parties, Dr Baburam Bhattarai said the fresh agreement was made to accelerate the constitution writing. Meanwhile, the MJF (Democratic) in the note of dissent has demanded a separate province for Kailali, Kanchanpur, Bardiya, Banke and Dang district. Similarly, UCPN (Maoist) complained of not giving autonomy to the Magar dominated area. Also the Chairman of the Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, Dr Bhattarai said there were still the issues as threshold, religion, judiciary, Dalit left to agree on. The Constitution Drafting Committee is to present the report to the Constituent Assembly Chairman Subash Nembang Friday itself. Dr Bhattarai urged all not to obstruct the submission of draft constitution but to devote to preparing a consensus report. He hoped all issues could be settled till the last hour. The MJF (Democratic) had quit the meeting expressing dissent. RSS
