Koshi Provincial Assembly meeting set to convene on August 30

By Our Correspondent,Biratnagar, Aug. 22: The Koshi Provincial Assembly meeting is scheduled for August 30. The secretariat of the provincial assembly announced this in a notice published on Tuesday afternoon.

The Koshi Provincial Assembly, which was adjourned on June 22 after passing the budget, is set to convene nearly two months later.

The provincial assembly meeting, initially postponed after an internal agreement to convene in the first week of Sharwan, was delayed for an extended period due to changes in the federal government. 

The CPN (Maoist Centre) demanded to call the meeting of the provincial assembly two weeks ago, citing that people’s representatives had been unable to address issues related to floods, landslides, natural disasters, and other public concerns due to the prolonged delay in holding the session.

On Sunday, CPN-UML’s parliamentary party chief whip, Rewati Raman Bhandari, also called for an immediate meeting of the provincial assembly.

Following pressure from both the main opposition party and the ruling party, Speaker Ambar Bahadur Bista instructed the provincial assembly secretariat to issue a notice on Tuesday, announcing that the assembly meeting would be held on September 3.

The provincial assembly secretariat initially announced the meeting with a 15-day notice period, but just half an hour later, it issued a second notice, rescheduling the meeting for August 30. 

Speaker Bista was hesitant to convene a meeting of the provincial assembly due to uncertainty over the Nepali Congress's position—whether it would align with the ruling party or the opposition. This confusion arose because the CPN (Maoist Centre) continued to support the provincial government, while the Nepali Congress had not joined the government yet.

The provincial assembly meeting was delayed for an extended period because the chief minister of the provincial government did not make a clear request to convene the session.

The CPN (Maoist Center), a party in the Koshi provincial government, announced on July 26 that it would exit the government and remain in the opposition.

Although the Nepali Congress was expected to join a new government later, it refrained from participating in the Koshi government for the following 27 days.

Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki has been asserting that the Nepali Congress will join the government within a few days.

Chief Minister Karki stated that although an agreement on ministerial division had been reached with the Nepali Congress, the party did not join the government due to its own internal reasons.

The CPN-UML is now confident that the Nepali Congress will join the provincial government before the upcoming provincial assembly meeting.

Speaker Bista had been reluctant to hold the meeting, citing the issue of whether to place the Nepali Congress under the ruling party or the opposition, given that the party was not participating in the government. 

However, the Speaker called the meeting after assembly members from the UML also pressed for it.

Earlier, UML chief whip Bhandari had stated that a meeting should be called to address numerous public concerns and to discuss two pending bills.

Since the budget for the current financial year was passed, the provincial assembly meeting adjourned on June 22 has yet to be reconvened.

Last week, Indra Bahadur Angbo, the leader of the CPN (MC) parliamentary party, called for an immediate meeting of the provincial assembly to discuss budget implementation, damage caused by natural disasters, and other public concerns.

The government had stated that it would hold a meeting once the Nepali Congress also joined the cabinet.

Speaker Bista said that while he had no issue with convening the provincial assembly meeting, there were some technical difficulties.

As a result, he allotted a two-week timeframe for convening the meeting, even though meetings of the convention in regular operation were typically held for 3-4 days.