The meeting of the Steering Committee of the Seven Party Alliance held on Monday has decided to put on hold the election of Free Student Unions (FSU).

Students staging protest in the capital Kathmandu against the decision of the seven-party Steering Committee to suspend the Free Students Union (FSU) election, Monday, Feb 04 08. nepalnews.com/ANA

Students staging protest in the capital Kathmandu against the decision…
The meeting held at CPN-Maoist head office in Buddhangar decided to ask student organisations to suspend the FSU election as it could affect the constituent assembly elections. The CPN-UML leaders, however, insisted that the FSU polls should take place.

The Maoist side proposed to suspend the campus election taking into consideration the need to intensify the CA polls campaigning, emphasising that the students should also actively take part in it.

Nepal Congress and other smaller parties raised no objection to the proposal to stall the FSU polls.

Even as student organisations have not yet reacted to the Steering Committee’s decision, it is now certain that the FSU polls would be cancelled with Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula stating that the government would not be able to deploy the required number of security forces for the polls. On Sunday, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had also advised the leaders of the Nepal Students Union to withhold the FSU election and concentrate on the CA election.

Additionally, the SPA meeting has asked the government to stop distribution of Rs one million to the MPs ahead of the polls. The government’s decision to distribute the money to each parliamentarian through district development committees for development activities had been widely criticised. The Steering Committee meeting concluded that the money could be re-distributed to the MPS after the CA polls.

The meeting also decided to raise the issue of Susta with India through diplomatic channels. People displaced from Susta staged protest outside the meeting venue in the morning and later informed the committee members about the encroachment of Nepali land by Indian authorities.

In another development, the Steering Committee decided not to reconstitute the local bodies for the time being. The decision to form the local bodies had been delayed due to disagreements within the SPA. nepalnews.com ia Feb 04 08