KATHMANDU: Speaker Devraj Ghimire on Monday held a meeting with chief whips and whips of major political parties in an effort to resolve the ongoing deadlock in the Federal Parliament.
During the discussion, Speaker Ghimire expressed concern over the continued absence of some parties from regular parliamentary proceedings and emphasized the importance of dialogue and consensus to move forward.
“A perpetual obstruction of Parliament is not a solution. It is unfortunate that even the fourth and fifth largest parties, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), have not been participating in discussions,” he said.
He urged ruling and opposition parties, along with the absent groups, to reengage in dialogue, pledging to play a facilitative role in the process.
“Let’s make Parliament a forum for solutions, not a space for endless protest,” Ghimire added, urging all parties to return to the table and seek consensus within the next two weeks.
During the meeting, Nepali Congress Chief Whip Shyam Ghimire said talks with the RSP were ongoing but had not yet yielded results. He suggested suspending parliamentary proceedings temporarily to create space for dialogue.
Maoist Centre’s Hitraj Pandey proposed sending the disputed land-related bill to a committee instead of passing it in the full House.
“Let’s halt meetings for two weeks to build political consensus,” he said.
RSP Chief Whip Santosh Pariyar echoed similar sentiments, noting that Parliament had been stuck in continuous obstruction. “If there are no critical bills to be passed, we should suspend sessions in the first half of August to foster consensus,” he said.
RPP Chief Whip Gyanendra Shahi urged the Speaker to appeal to the government for broader political agreement, adding that conducting sessions in the absence of the fourth and fifth-largest parties sends a negative message.
Monday’s meeting was attended by Shyam Ghimire (Nepali Congress), Hitraj Pandey (Maoist Centre), Santosh Pariyar (RSP), Gyan Bahadur Shahi (RPP), and Sunita Baral (UML). The meeting reached an agreement on the parliamentary agenda until July 30.
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