Almost all broadsheet dailies published in Kathmandu on Friday have given space to the Prime Minister’s assurance that the upcoming elections will not be postponed. Similarly, the opposition’s warning to the government not to postpone the polls has also received attention.
Important
Is the Prime Minister preparing to postpone elections?
Almost all front pages of broadsheet dailies have published reports on the fate of the upcoming elections. The Himalayan Times says the UML and the Maoist Centre have warned Prime Minister Deuba no to remove CPN-MC ministers from the Cabinet or postpone the polls. The paper says that during a meeting of the three leaders at the Prime Minister’s residence in Baluwatar on Thursday, the two communist leaders told Deuba that the country would plunge into a constitutional as well as a political crisis if elections are not held in the stipulated time. Naya Patrika says the Prime Minister assured the two leaders that the elections will not be postponed and he will adhere to the election code of conduct. Republica reports that NC leaders have been consulting legal experts, smaller parties and party’s think tank to discuss the legal and political consequence of removing the Maoist centre ministers from the Cabinet. The state-run Gorkhapatra also says the Prime Minister has assured the polls will take place on the stipulated date.
Alliance stutters, fails to reach consensus
Kantipur and Annapurna Post say the new left alliance is struggling to negotiate the terms of the coalition. Annapurna Post says the Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Nepal has threatened to quit the alliance if it does not get the seats it has been demanding. It says Bhattarai has warned that he will leave the alliance if he is made to give up his Gorkha-2 seat. Kantipur says that as the Maoist Centre and the UML have agreed to a 40-60 partnership, the MC is saying that all candidates contesting the elections with ‘sun’ as their electoral symbol should be counted as UML candidates. The UML has not agreed to this. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress is under pressure to leave the Democratic Alliance after Madhesh-based parties started demanding more seats.
Annapurna Post reports that the Indian External Affairs Ministry says the bid to form a leftist alliance in Nepal is an internal matter of the neighbouring state and would not comment on it.
Parliament’s tenure ending today
Republica says Parliament’s meeting on Friday will be its last meeting if the government does not defer the scheduled date for the filing of nominations for the upcoming elections. This parliament elected four Prime Ministers, passed the first constitution amendment bill and spent over 1,000 hours to hold 394 meetings in 958 days. The Himalayan Times and Annapurna Post also carry similar reports.
Ignored
Left MPs block Medical Education Bill
The Kathmandu Post says the Medical Education Bill could not be tabled in Parliament on Thursday after MPs from the UML and the Maoist Centre objected to it. The government had agreed to table the bill in Parliament in response to activist Dr Govinda KC’s hunger strike. The paper says KC has urged Speaker Onsari Gharti to use special powers to get the all-important bill endorsed by Parliament before the final meeting on Friday.
Plagiarism accused doctors black-listed
Republica says five Kathmandu University and one Indian doctor have been blacklisted globally for plagiarising contents of a research paper prepared by senior surgeon Dr Bhola Rijal and his team. The report says that officials of the Bali Medical Journal has retracted the paper concerned and indexing agencies informed about the plagiarism case.
