At a time when political parties are facing all sorts of criticisms for not being able to make a conducive environment for election to constituent assembly, CPN-UML, one of the main coalition partners, has started to ‘appease’ Madhesis or people of terai origin for votes.

In a mass gathering of Madheshi people living in Kathmandu, Saturday, CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, who himself represents a terai constituency, called on all Madhesis to cast votes in favour of his party and also “engage in publicity campaign’ for the same. Reiterating his previous stance that there is no other option to the constituent assembly election, he asked all Madheshi people gathered there to cast their votes on ‘sun’, the party’s election symbol, during the constituent assembly election scheduled for November 22.

Nepal also used the opportunity to request the armed groups operating in terai to announce a ceasefire and immediately come to the negotiating table. He said that since the constituent assembly is tipped to promote the agenda of state restructuring, there is no meaning of putting any pre-condition before it.