RSS DIALOGUE WITH LAWMAKER Constitution amendment should accelerate progress: Rekha Sharma

Kathmandu, Feb 6: The winter session of the federal parliament is going on now. Slew of bills are being presented and deliberated in the parliament meetings.    
    
This session of the parliament, also called the bill session, has been observed keenly in the wake of urgency to pass the bills to forward development works and enforce federalism effectively. How the deliberations will be forwarded and consensus reached among lawmakers on the repressing issues would determine the quality of bills.    
     
In this connection, RSS sat with CPN (Maoist Centre) lawmaker and former Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Rekha Sharma. She said her party was not against constitution amendment, but insisted on ensuring that the amendment adopts progressive measure.    
    
She viewed the lawmakers need to hone their knowledge to understand and make meaningful the bills presented in the parliament. However, people are expecting much from them to intensify development works in the related constituencies. We failed to persuade the voters that lawmakers' major role is to make law, while development and construction are secondary issues.    
    
According to her, as we political leaders often promise development works before elections, it is natural for the people as well to expect fulfillment of promises after voting.    
    
Time has come to amend constitution, as it has been a decade since the promulgation of the present constitution, she said, adding that the agreement among the ruling parties was, however, doubtful of honesty in this regard. If they are really for the amendment of the national charter, they had to have adequate discussions on time.    
    
In her views, the amendment of the national charter must pay heed to the issues and concern of the marginalized people and communities. The changes in constitutional provisions should not deprive their rights.    
    
So, the amendment of national charter should not be mere political agenda.    
    
The former minister also regretted that the political forces that brought the present democratic federal republic after long struggles and sacrifice failed to correct themselves to institutionalize the system. The governments have not witnessed success in maintaining good governance, he commented.    
    
Sharma also reminded the works she had carried out during her term as Information Minister like the draft on regulation of social networking sites.    
    
Lawmaker Sharma, who entered politics since 2043BS, was elected the Member of the House of Representatives from constituency no 2 of Dang district through the 2079 general election. She belongs to the CPN (Maoist Centre).    
    
RSS reporter Hemanta Joshi had sat with her for the RSS dialogue.  (RSS)