A Nepali Congress (NC) leader has claimed that politics has moved forward after the meeting of Prime Minister (PM) Sher Bahadur Deuba and main opposition leader KP Sharma Oli Thursday night.
"Both the leaders have almost agreed to provide outlet to the current politics and MCC (Millennium Challenge Corporation)," the leader told Setopati.
PM Deuba is determined to get the MCC Compact, that his government signed four years back with America, ratified in the House this time. He tried his best to forge consensus inside the ruling coalition for that but to no avail.
He wanted to even include the issue of MCC in the common minimum program prepared by the coalition at the time of forming this government under him. He agreed only after CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal asked to not include it then and assured that it will be ratified later through consensus.
"PM made a lot of efforts to try to convince Dahal on the issue of MCC in the past six months. He has moved on after seeing that the efforts until yesterday did not succeed," the leader reasoned.
The leader revealed that the top leaders of NC have concluded that Dahal cannot move toward ratifying MCC no matter how much he tries due to the international dimensions of his party and the way the rank and file of his party is united against the MCC Compact.
He said that Deuba went to Balkot to meet CPN-UML Chairman Oli on the basis of that conclusion. "Result of that meeting will be seen today or tomorrow."
The ruling coalition is meeting again today to discuss the MCC Compact. Dahal, CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal and Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) Chairman Upendra Yadav met at the Dahal residence in Khumaltar Friday morning ahead of the coalition meeting and concluded that the MCC Compact cannot be tabled in the House in the current environment.
"We have concluded that the House obstruction should end first if it is tabled," a leader who attended the Khumaltar meeting told Setopati. "The law based on which it will be tabled is also not clear yet."
The conclusion of the Khumaltar meeting and NC's conclusion that the MCC Compact cannot be ratified through this coalition hints that time is up for this coalition.
