Five Nepali Congress (NC) lawmakers from the plains including Amresh Kumar Singh and Umakanta Chaudhary have reached the Federal Parliament Secretariat to register a separate Constitution amendment bill on Tuesday.
"We are going to register the amendment bill in accordance to the central committee instruction to the parliamentary party to re-register the amendment bill," Singh told Setopati about the non-government bill.
The quintet is trying to revive the amendment proposal that failed on August 21, 2017. NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba led the government then in coalition with the then CPN (Maoist Center). The Constitution amendment bill registered by the government to address the demands of Madhes-based parties had failed in lack of two-third majority with parties including the then CPN-UML and others voting against it.
The NC central committee meeting on Saturday apart from deciding to support the government's amendment bill of changing the coat of arms to implement the new map had also decided to instruct the parliamentary party to re-register the amendment bill pointing that the demands of people from tarai-Madhes have yet to be addressed.
NC whip Pushpa Bhusal, however, claimed that the bill Singh and others are trying to register is not on behalf of the party. "There is no plan of registering the bill on behalf of the party today. We are still preparing. We have yet to sit for meeting and take decision," Bhusal told Setopati.