With barely nine hours to go till the midnight deadline, the debate on constitution drafting is sure to go down to the wire.

After Saturday’s marathon meetings failed to yield any results, the leaders have been holding meetings on several fronts in a bid to consolidate their position ahead of final showdown at the CA.

The Maoists and the Madhesis held their own meeting while the Maoist hardline faction has been secretly meeting NC and UML leaders. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai met President Ram Baran Yadav early on Sunday to brief him about the latest developments, and went straight from there to see his boss, Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Bhattarai is learned to have assured the President he would deliver the constitution by deadline, after which Shital Niwas is said to be preparing for a grand midnight-ceremony.

However, forging a consensus in a highly polarised environment will get more difficult as the minutes tick by. The parties have yet to find a mutually agreeable federal model that has been stalling the statute drafting process. The leaders point fingers at one another in front of the media but the closed door negotiations make it difficult for the media to put a blame on one particular party. While the NC and UML blame the Maoists and the Madhesi Front for staying put on ethnic federalism that favours single identity, the Maoists and the Madhesis have denied the allegation and instead blame NC and UML for insisting on declaring constitution without federalism.

The all party meeting yesterday had ended in a disappointing note amid rumours that both sides were collecting signatures of the CA members as scare tactics to help them in the bargaining. In today’s meeting at Baluwatar, however, the NC says it can live with a new proposal for 13 states, which was a part of the UCPN-M’s election manifesto. The NC leaders insist that in the proposal Maoists have agreed on multi-identity federalism.

But the proposal is sure to irk the Madhesis because it proposes five states in the Madhes, where they want no more than two. Madhesi Front leader and Minister of Communication Rajkishor Yadav has termed the proposal as a ploy to break their partnership with the Maoists. The NC has also proposed that all the proposed models be listed in the constitution with provision of handing over the issue to a ‘Federal Commission’ but the Maoists and the Madhesis have requested NC and UML to consider SRC’s 14 states model, or agree on taking the matter to the CA for voting.

Meanwhile, the CA and the legislature parliament’s meeting scheduled for 11 am on Sunday has been delayed as the parties are still holding talks. This will delay the regular procedures and there is possibility that the CA meeting, when it begins later in the day, will be stretched beyond the deadline, but legal experts say the deadline will not expire as long as the CA is in session.

The area around the CA building in Naya Baneswor looks like a battleground with over 1,200 Armed Police personnel mobilised to prevent the situation getting out of hand. Elsewhere in the Valley and in major cities around the country, security has been put on high alert to prevent the situation from out of control.

It is business as usual this Sunday, but there is increasing public apprehension among citizens who seem more wary of anarchy in the streets than a faulty constitution.

Anurag Acharya