CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has revealed that the ruling coalition has not been able to agree on sharing of tickets for the local election due to demands of CPN (Unified Socialist).
He briefed the former standing committee members of the party during a meeting Tuesday that the coalition has agreed for the six metropolitan cities but the parties have yet to agree about 11 sub-metropolitan cities.
He stated that Nepali Congress (NC) will get three metropolitan cities, and CPN (Maoist Center), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and CPN (Unified Socialist) one each, Maoist leader Peshal Khatiwada quoted Dahal as briefing.
NC will get Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Biratnagar; Maoist Center Bharatpur; JSP Birgunj and Unified Socialist Pokhara.
Dahal added that the top coalition leaders have already agreed to give Pokhara to Unified Socialist but there have been problems from the local level.
The local problem he referred to was the decision taken by Kaski Congress on Monday refusing to give away the ticket for Pokhara mayor to another party.
"We will try our best to ally as far as possible. If not there will be alliance where we agree and friendly competition where we cannot," Khatiwada quoted Dahal as adding.
Dahal told the party leaders that Maoist Center will get Jitpur Simara and one of the two sub-metropolitan cities in Dang.
He revealed that the coalition has not been able to reach agreement as Unified Socialist has demanded more sub-metropolitan cities. Dahal said that Unified Socialist has been given Hetauda but it has also been staking claim for Dharan and Dang claiming that it should get at least half of the sub-metropolitan cities that UML won in the last local election.
Pointing that the provincial committees have been authorized to decide about alliance at the municipality and rural municipality levels he stated that the center will take a call only if there are problems at the provincial level.
Other leaders proposed that the lower committees should be authorized to ally at the municipality and rural municipality levels based on necessity but Dahal refused saying that the party cannot ally with UML and other parties that have allied with UML.
The ruling coalition will meet later Tuesday to finalize sharing of tickets for metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities.
