Madhesi parties to boycott polls

Nepal’s Madhesbased parties on Wednesday decided to boycott all local elections slated for May 14 and announced a fresh protest saying the new constitution amendment is even more regressive than the previous one.

The move by the alliance of seven Madhesi parties threw into disarray the plans of the government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘ Prachanda’ to hold local polls after a gap of 20 years. The alliance said they will picket all district election offices in their stronghold of Tarai from next week and announce other protest programmes in detail later.

A meeting of Madhes-based parties concluded they would not take ownership of the constitution amendment registered in Parliament on Tuesday.

They said the new proposal has not addressed revision of provincial boundaries, the key demand of Madhesis, and that no provisions pertaining to citizenship, national assembly and language has been changed from the old proposal.

The Madesi alliance said the content in the proposal was different from what was agreed upon by the joint taskforce of ruling parties and Morcha leaders.

The fundamental demand, said the alliance in a statement, is to change demarcation of the provincial boundaries which the government has failed to fulfil.

The government had moved the amendment in a bid to persuade Madhes-based parties to take part in local, provincial and central elections.