Nepal’s Opposition party announces end to months long disruption of Parliament

Kathmandu [Nepal], May 17 (ANI): Following its continued disruption of parliamentary proceedings for nine months, Nepal’s principal Opposition party, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) has formally announced an end to its protest.
Announcing the decision, CPN-UML’s Deputy Secretary, Pradip Gyawali said that the decision was taken in wake of the ongoing situation in the country, which he said, “was on the brink of collapse”.
“Our thesis remains the same, introducing the bills to facilitate split of political parties and latter withdrawal of it after the achievement of ambition, active involvement of house speaker during the process, the court further acting as associator on the issue along with other institutions. This tendency is wrong and always would remain wrong,” Gyawali said, referring to events of last year when a split in the party led to high political drama culminating in the ouster of then Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli.
“We are adamant on our claims, despite this, the nation already has moved forward in a course because of which we have decided to present our protest motion in a different way,” Gyawali added.
The CPN-UML had been obstructing parliament meetings since September 8, last year, alleging that Speaker Agni Sapkota had failed to play an impartial role in the Parliament. The CPN-UML alleged that Speaker Sapkota did not sack the 14 CPN-UML lawmakers as recommended by the party.
Sapkota’s decision to not take action against the 14 lawmakers including Madhav Kumar Nepal in August last year paved the way to form a new party called CPN (Unified Socialist), splitting the CPN-UML and ouster of KP Sharma Oli. (ANI)