Koshi Province Government Faces Pressure to Revise Budget

Biratnagar. The Koshi Province government has prepared to put the ruling party MPs, who are pressuring to correct the budget (red book) for the upcoming fiscal year 2083/84 and 'balance it', in a difficult situation. In a parliamentary system, a budget that has already been presented is not amended. If the budget presented by the government, which has a majority, is amended or rejected, it is considered to have lost confidence. After that, moral pressure is created on the head of government, and the government falls. However, the ruling party MPs of Koshi Province are adamant about correcting the red book, even if they do not explicitly say 'the budget should be amended'.

Til Kumar Menyangbo, also the deputy leader of the CPN-UML parliamentary party, said on Monday at the Provincial Assembly Secretariat premises, 'The budget is not to be amended. It is to correct the programs.' He stated that the total amount of the budget, 40 billion 44 million 98 lakh rupees, would not be changed, and the revenue rates would not be altered, but some internal programs would be changed. Not only him, but also UML MP Hom Bahadur Thapa, who is also the chairman of the Infrastructure Development Committee of Koshi Province, says that the budget will be adjusted to maintain balance. 'It's not budget amendment. It's about adjusting,' he said, 'It's about making changes here and there in the programs.'

Himal Karki, deputy leader of the Nepali Congress parliamentary party, also says that the budget will not be amended but balanced. 'The budget has not been amended, it is about maintaining proportional balance, adjusting,' he said, when asked how it would be balanced, he again steered the conversation towards amendment, 'The red book has only come up for discussion, it has not been passed yet. The government will make changes to what it has proposed, that's all. The parliament can discuss and improve for the good, can't it?'

CPN-UML MP Ekaraj Karki, who was also the former Minister for Water Supply, Irrigation, and Energy, also talks about budget balance. 'We have said that the budget is not balanced, it should be balanced. We have not said amendment, it is about proportional balance, adjusting,' he said, 'Once the Finance Minister in parliament says this will be removed and this will be included, it will be done, it's not a big deal.'

However, a current minister of Koshi Province said that the budget will either pass or fail, but it will not be amended. He said, 'Amendment is possible only until the budget speech is read and submitted to the system. Once it is closed, it is finished. There is no immediate scope to cut one plan and add it to another. Rather, the budget will be passed now, and then after the end of Asar and the beginning of Shrawan, adjustments will be made.'

For the past few days, meetings of ruling party MPs including Hom Bahadur Thapa, Ekaraj Karki, Radhakrishna Khanal, Himal Karki, Bhupendra Rai, Binod Wantwa, Israel Mansuri, and Gyanananda Mandal have been held daily. The Chief Minister's Secretariat stated that they discussed the issue of resuming the parliament meeting called for tomorrow after holding internal discussions with them on Monday afternoon and discussing with Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki at 4 PM.

The MPs have reiterated their old demand that their issues should be included in the budget. Dissatisfied MPs have launched a 'signature campaign' against the budget. Congress party deputy leader Himal Karki claimed that 27 MPs have already signed. However, the government side says that insisting on modification after the budget has been presented in parliament, threatening to obstruct parliament, and informally collecting signatures is not in line with parliamentary values and norms. 'After the budget is presented, the honorable members are ignoring parliamentary values, norms, and past established practices by showing immaturity in parliament,' said a minister.

CPN-UML MP Ram Bahadur Magar, who was also the former Minister of Economic Affairs, says that even if another government comes, the budget that has been presented in parliament will be passed. 'Not only this government, but another government will also amend a budget that has already been presented only by bringing a supplementary budget. There is no such thing as amending the budget,' Magar said, 'There is no provision for amending the budget in the parliament rules and parliamentary values.'

Meanwhile, Indra Bahadur Angbo, leader of the opposition party, the Nepali Communist Party, also says that if the budget is amended, the government will fall. 'Since the budget is a financial bill, it is either passed or failed. In principle, it is not amended,' Angbo said, 'They are of the view that the budget should be rewritten and brought into balance by cutting the budget of the ministers' own constituencies. Amending the budget is not an easy matter.'

According to Angbo, there is an option to send plans and budgets to local levels as per the MPs' demands through the financial transfer title. 'The matter of balancing by cutting the ministers' budget is not easy,' he said. However, Angbo stated that their demand is for the budget to be rewritten as this budget cannot play any role in the province's development and prosperity.

According to parliamentary affairs experts, the budget speech becomes the property of the parliament once presented. In such a situation, threatening to defeat one's own government's budget in violation of party discipline is unparliamentary conduct. In previous years, dissatisfaction with the budget has not been unseen. However, the established tradition has been for the government to address those dissatisfactions after the budget is passed through working procedures, reallocations, and financial transfers. 'The honorable members have completely ignored past practices by insisting on correcting the budget,' said a government minister.

No matter how much the dissatisfied MPs express their anger, no one is allowed to go beyond the party's whip in a party system. Voting against the party's decision on a sensitive issue like the budget is a serious political mistake. A government minister says, 'Violating the whip means either facing action or breaking the party. So far, what we have seen, known, and experienced is that there are only two options for the budget: it either passes or fails.'

Some MPs from both the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are engaged in a signature campaign, expressing extreme dissatisfaction with the budget. They have warned of not allowing parliament to function, stating that the budget is minister-centric. However, the minister's comment is that standing against the government's budget while being in the ruling party is politically and morally wrong.

'It is not moral for MPs from the ruling party to do this. It is normal for the opposition to propose cutting one rupee or one hundred rupees, but for ruling party MPs to threaten to defeat the budget is outside parliamentary decorum,' said the minister. 'The ruling party MPs say that more than 20 crore rupees have gone to the constituencies of the MPs who want to balance the budget. 'This is all happening based on personal grudges, factions and sub-factions,' said the MP, 'In the end, the party will issue a whip and the game will be over. It will be a cold shower, won't it?'

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