Top leaders of the big three parties tentatively agreed to pass the budget and defer the prime ministerial election.
In the third round of closed door negotiations on power sharing and the peace process on Monday, top leaders of the three parties formed a committee of former finance ministers Baburam Bhattarai, Ram Sharan Mahat and Bharat Mohan Adhikari to finalise the new budget to be presented in parliament on 19 November.
They agreed to postpone the 17th round of the prime ministerial elections scheduled for today till 19 November. They have also decided to hold the next round of three-party talks a day before the election, on 18 November, according to a joint statement issued by Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN-UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal and Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala.
The budget was supposed to be approved by mid-July. An advance budget had been approved to allow the government to pay workers and run day-to-day activities for four months, but that expires Tuesday. The UCPN (Maoist) has been blocking the budget, saying the caretaker government has no authority to present a full-fledged budget.