KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has initiated personal meetings with leaders of various political parties in a bid to ratify the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) from the Parliament.

PM Deuba’s strategy to “convince” leaders of various political parties represented the Parliament comes soon after the government tabled the MCC Compact in the House of Representatives on Sunday.

Sources have said that PM Dueba is trying to push for parliamentary arithmetic at a time when the ruling coalition partners — the Maoist Center and the Unified Socialist – have said they would vote against the Compact in the parliament.

“PM Deuba believes that the main opposition – CPN-UML – which has been regularly obstructing the Parliament meetings — will boycott the voting process,” the source said.

The UML party has been obstructing the parliament alleging Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota for not taking action against 14 former UML lawmakers.

The House of Representatives has a total of 271 lawmakers, including 97 from CPN-UML, 61 from Nepali Congress, 24 from Unified Socialist, 20 from Janata Samajbadi Party, 12 from Democratic Socialist Party, one each from Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Janamorcha, and Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party.

The source also claimed that Prime Minister Deuba has even asked the cabinet ministers to either vote in favor of MCC or face consequences.

The parliament requires a majority in the presence of more than a quarter of the lawmakers to ratify the MCC Compact.

Minister for Communication and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki on Sunday tabled the US grant MCC Compact in the parliament.

Earlier, a meeting of the ruling coalition held at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar on Sunday morning had decided to table MCC in the parliament.

While the Nepali Congress (NC) is in favor of ratifying the MCC, the CPN (Maoist Center) and the CPN (Unified Socialist), are of the view that the MCC needs amendment.

The next meeting of the House of Representatives on February 24 will see the discussion on MCC.

After the discussion, the lawmakers will have time to propose amendments.

However, such amendment applies only to the comments raised by the Government of Nepal or to any modification/amendment that may be made.

Meanwhile, CPN-Maoist Center Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has urged lawmakers to wait for a few more days after party leaders demanded to pull out of the government as per the decision of the parliamentary party following the tabling of the MCCin parliament.

According to Maoist Center Chief Whip Dev Gurung, leaders Jaipuri Gharti and Rekha Sharma dissented the leadership’s decision and put forth dissenting views in the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee held before the parliament session convened.

Maoist leader Gurung has even opposed the MCC in the parliament meeting.