Govt concerned about people's right to citizenship: Khand

By Ram Prasad Dahal, Kathmandu, Aug 26 : At a time when the debate is mounting on the citizenship bill, the government has said that President Vidhya Devi Bhandari’s questions over the bill were related to the constitutional provision, not the bill.

“The President’s concerns on gender bias are related to the constitutional provision, not to the bill per se. She put forth the point in the message about an amendment to the constitution,” Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand said on Thursday at a discussion with journalists held at Home Ministry in Singha Durbar. 

The President’s concern is to ‘provide adopted citizenship to women only is a gender bias. The Home Ministry said adopting citizenship to foreign women who get married to Nepali men was not a new provision of the bill as it is practiced since 2009 BS.  

“The President has not written that the bill is not compatible with any clause of the constitution,” he stated referring to the President’s return of the bill to the House of Representatives. The government is likely to present the bill in the National Assembly meeting on August 28.

Khand said the government brought the bill to give justice to above 650,000 youths, born to Nepali citizenship holders fathers, and mothers. 

“Father and mother have citizenship but how long do they live as non-citizens without getting citizenship? Is it not a violation of the constitutional provision, is it not injustice to them?” he questioned.

The government concluded the youth’s life was not running without citizenship. 

The Ministry clarified no new provision was added to the bill introduced by the KP Sharma Oli-led government expect non-resident Nepali.

 The government judged the bill was endorsed by the parliament without obstruction and objection.

“The bill was endorsed from the House of Representatives comfortably. No opposition party lawmaker spoke against it,” Khand added. “In the National Assembly, only one independent and one nominated member said ‘No’. The UML members remained mum,” he said.

Giving a background to initiatives of the government, Khand said he and the law minister had held discussions with UML chair Oli and other leaders on the bill in length. “They had committed to us that no obstruction would be created in the parliament on the bill,” he claimed.

Home Minister Khand said his meeting with Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Prabhu Ram Sharma on Tuesday was regular. “However, during the meeting security situation and matters on Citizenship Bills were discussed. The COAS said that the army would follow government decision on the citizenship bill as it is political issue,” Khand informed.

The House of Representatives on Thursday endorsed the bill to amend the Citizenship Act 2006, which was returned by President Bhandari for a review, without any changes. The bill that was endorsed with a majority vote will be sent to the President’s Office again for authentication after it gets through the National Assembly.

After sitting on the bill for 14 days, the President on Sunday returned it to the lower house with a 15-point message and comments on seven provisions of the bill, urging the parliament to review it. However, the House didn’t review it as the ruling parties decided to resend it for authentication without any changes.