Sunday, November 02, 2014

6 States

English: This picture used to represent the Ne...
English: This picture used to represent the Nepali Congress. This Picture based on Nepali Congress.png (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In a democracy you can't get everything you want. To get everything you want you have to be dictator in a dictatorship. But I think we all prefer democracy. So there has to be give and take. For the Madhesi parties what is important is (1) The Terai is not split. Bhitri Madhesh is Madhesh, or it would have been called Lower Pahad. It is called Bhitri Madhesh for a reason. The three Bhitri Madhesh valleys would be perfect locations to grow software cities. And that is my attraction to them. So if you are going to create two states in the Terai, make it Nawalparasi to Kanchanpur, Surkhet included, and Chitwan to Jhapa, Udaypur included. (2) The Upper House can not be designed in a way to colonize the Terai. Treating the whole country as one constituency and holding proportional elections would be best.

But there still is no talk about the power devolution formula. Federalism will be defeated if all power still stays with the central government in Kathmandu. Maps and states will not matter if there is no meaningful power devolution.

Nepal parties agree on constitution deal
Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and CPN-ML agreed on the deal on matters relating to restructuring of state, forms of governance, judicial system and electoral system. ..... The four parties are said to have agreed to a six-province model for state restructuring, including four in the hills and two in the southern plains. ..... As per the deal, there shall be a bicameral legislature in the centre with 75 members in the upper house and 175 in the lower house. The upper house will be elected through proportional representation voting system and the lower house through direct election or first-past-the-post system. .... the two major ruling parties, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are holding consultation with the top leaders of the UCPN-Maoist tomorrow to strike a deal so that the new Constitution could be promulgated through forging consensus among all the political parties.

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