The main opposition party Nepali Congress (NC) has obstructed both the House of Representatives (HoR) and the National Assembly (NA) of the federal parliament on Monday accusing the government of trying to dissolve hospitals opened in the name of former prime ministers (PM) Girija Prasad Koirala and Sushil Koirala.
The Sushil Koirala government had opened the Girija Prasad Koirala Center for Respiratory Diseases in Tanahu in 2014 and the coalition government of Pushpa Kamal Dahal including NC and the then CPN (Maoist Center) in 2016 opened the Sushil Koirala Cancer Hospital in Banke in 2016.
The Health Ministry on January 3 had proposed to keep 11 hospitals including the two under the federal government but the Cabinet refused to keep the two hospitals opened in the name of former NC presidents under the federal government leaving them vulnerable to dissolution.
NC lawmakers stood up from their chair at the start of the NA meeting on Monday and demanded the government's position on the two hospitals. They refused to take their seat despite NA Chairman Ganesh Prasad Timalsina requesting them to sit. The meeting was adjourned for 30 minutes and then until January 28 after that.
NC lawmakers stood up in protest immediately after start of the HoR meeting as well. Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara allowed deputy parliamentary party leader of NC Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar to speak after that.
Gachchhadar told the House that the party put its position even during the meeting of National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) before PM KP Sharma Oli left for Switzerland on Sunday.
The HoR was adjourned until Tuesday after NC lawmakers refused to take seat even after that.
The Girija Prasad Koirala Center for Respiratory Diseases is in operation in Belchautara of Dulegauda, Tanahu with over 30 beds. “We have already arranged for more than 700 ropanis of land as per the plan to make it the main hospital in the whole Gandaki province,” NC leader Ram Chandra Paudel has said.
NC claims that Indian PM Narendra Modi had given words to provide Indian assistance for the two hospitals during the meeting with the then PM Sher Bahadur Deuba, and accuses PM Oli of not taking initiative to bring the promised assistance.
