“PM’s rigidity impeding power sharing consensus”

Differences among the eight political parties on power sharing has delayed the formation of an interim government. The meeting of top brass of four political parties held on Sunday failed to agree on the distribution of ministerial portfolio.

The top brass of Nepali Congress (NC), Nepali Congress Democratic (NC-D), CPN-Maoist and CPN-UML held the meeting this morning. However, they could not reach an agreement following rigidity in their stance on power sharing.

According to sources, CPN-UML wanted one of the two ministries - Home or Finance - but Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala reiterated that the NC would hold the Home, Finance and Defense ministries in the interim government.

According to CPN-UML leader Jhalanath Khanal, leaders of NC-D, CPN-UML and CPN- M rejected his proposal.

CPN-M has been stressing that the position of Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minster should be retained by it.
CPN-UML leader khanal accused Prime Minister of creating obstacles to finalize the issues. CPN-M Chairman Prachand has already commented that Nepali Congress especially PM could not become flexible to finalize the issue.

The PM has been accused of becoming more rigid reiterating his stance that NC would retain the Home, Defence and Finance Ministries in the interim government.

The prime minister is learnt to have argued that leading the cabinet in a critical period would be troublesome if the ministries, which dealt with security and finance, were not kept with the PM's party.

Meanwhile, the meeting of eight political parties scheduled for Sunday after for parties’ inconclusive discussion, has been called off.