Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala on Sunday said his party will not tolerate any sort of compromises in the main task of ensuring democracy, human rights and press freedom including other fundamental rights in the new constitution.

“The civil society also needs to play an active role in clearing away differences between the political parties while at the same time constantly putting pressure on the government for drafting a democratic constitution,” he told a team of civil society leaders who had come to meet him at his residence in Maharajgunj in the capital city.

The civil society leaders had met the NC president in the course of their meeting with top leaders of major political parties in order to draw their attention towards drafting the constitution on time.

At the meeting, the civil society leaders said that the constant political bickering has taken the attention away from the main problems facing the country and that because of the House deadlock, the constitution drafting process has been severely hampered.

Emerging from the meeting, Dr Devendra Raj Pandey, one of the top civil society leaders, said that they urged Koirala’s party, which spearheaded most of the democratic movements the country has witnessed till now, to play a leadership role in drafting the constitution in time by playing a pro-active role in ending the differences that exists among the political parties.

In response, he said Koirala assured that he and his party is committed to drafting the democratic constitution on time.

“He (Koirala) also said that NC is very sensitive on the issue of federalism and governing system of the country,” Pandey told reporters after the meeting.

Krishna Pahadi, Puroshattam Dahal, Bharat Pradhan including other civil society luminaries accompanied Pandey in the meeting.

The civil society representatives are scheduled to meet UML chairman Jhala Nath Khanal at the party’s headquarter in Balkhu later today to ask him to do something from his side to end the animosity between the political parties and help draft the constitution on time.

Earlier, the civil society reps had met Prime Minister and Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and said that the political parties needs to be sensitive towards building a constitution that upholds the people’s supremacy. nepalnews.com Apr 12 09