KATHMANDU:  A meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR) scheduled for 1 PM today to dwell on the US grant Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact has been postponed till February 27.

The meeting was scheduled to take place at the federal parliament building in New Baneshwor at 1 pm.

Earlier, Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota had postponed the meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government is striving its best to get the ‘ready-for endorsement’ MCC project ratified within the deadline given to the MCC office earlier.

Few months back, Prime Minister Deuba and CPN-Maoist Center Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had written MCC office in United States of America and had urged the latter to give few months time to get the grant ratified from the parliament. Accordingly, US had agreed to wait for five months before making further decision on the project.

Although Prime Minister Deuba has been successful in getting the MCC compact tabled in the parliament, which KP Oli-led government had failed to do, the coalition government is facing difficulties in getting ratified especially due to the Maoist Center Chairman Prachanda’s back-gearing from process and CPN-UML’s unusual indifference.

The ruling Nepali Congress (NC) is rendering its efforts to endorse the MCC through the parliament at any cost while the other coalition partners CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist) have decided to stand against the MCC.

Prime Minister  Deuba has intensified talks with main opposition CPN-UML to garner support for the MCC.

Prime Minister Deuba and UML Chairman Oli had held talks yesterday.

Prime Minister Deuba and the UML Chair have inched closer to consensus on the issue, leaders have said.

The meeting focused on endorsing the MCC compact through the parliament.

Similarly, the UML is making preparations to give a vote of confidence through the parliament as soon as the Maoist Center and Unified Socialist withdraw support to the government.

A provision has it that the Prime Minister has to take a vote of confidence within 30 days when the coalition partner withdraws support to the government.

UML has been demanding action against its 14 lawmakers including senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal who defected to form CPN (Unified Socialist) and resignation of Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota.

There are differences among  the leaders of the Janata Samajwadi Party on the issue of MCC.

Cadres of Maoist Center and Unified Socialist have been staging demonstrations in protest of the MCC.

Whatever the reason, the regular postponement of the parliament is sure to impact the process adversely in two ways: the delay will give further time for the protestors to garner support against the project; and  affect the government assured deadline of February 28.