An all-party meeting convened by UCPN-M chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has reached an understanding to bring out a partial budget. This is a clear departure from the previous position taken by ruling coalition to bring out a full budget. The meeting convened at Birendra International Convention Centre included among others major parties like Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, Madhesi front, RJP and newly formed CPN-Maoist.
Earlier, the opposition parties boycotted an all-party meeting called by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai at his office on Tuesday morning to seek consensus on the budget for the next fiscal year. The NC and UML leaders have been staying away from government’s official programmes. After the meeting called for the morning proved unsuccessful, the parties close to the ruling coalition had asked Dahal to call another meeting with the opposition parties.
The parties have agreed to meet again to decide whether to bring out an advance budget to meet time bound expenses or to bring out one-third of the total estimated budget. According to the sources, ruling coalition is trying hard to include expenses for the integration process and elections in the budget which the opposition has not agreed so far.