Parliament fails to endorse second constitution amendment bill

Kathmandu - The Legislature-Parliament Monday failed to endorse the Nepal's Constitution (second amendment) Bill-2073 BS due to lack of two thirds majority. 

A meeting of the Legislature Parliament could not pass the bill with failing to garner a required two-thirds votes. 

The House needed 395 votes of the existing total 592 lawmakers to pass the bill and 553 lawmakers took part in the voting process. 

A total of 347 votes were cast in favour of the proposal while 206 members voted against it. To approve the bill, the parliament had to garner 48 more votes. 

The government had registered the amendment bill in the House as it sought to address the demands of Rastriya Janata Party (RJP) Nepal. 

The Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre), RJP Nepal and Nepal Democratic Forum among others voted in favour of the bill while the CPN (UML), Rastriya Prajatantra Party and Nepal Workers and Peasants' Party voted against it. 

The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Democratic) and CPN (ML) remained off the voting. 

The bill was presented before the meeting for a decision as per the RJP-Nepal demand for amending the constitution before the local-level election in the Province Number. 2 scheduled for upcoming September 18. 

Prior to this, Minister for Law, Justice and Federal Affairs Yagya Bahadur Thapa presented the bill before the meeting, seeking its approval. 

The amendment bill includes the issues relating to the language, citizenship, representation in the National Assembly and boundaries of provinces in the constitution. 

A total of 53 lawmakers took part in the clause-wise deliberations over the bill.