The big four parties – Maoists, Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) and Nepali Congress (NC) – have agreed not to have any reference to system of party whip in the Constituent Assembly (CA) rules.

“We have decided against any reference toward whip. This means there will not be whip system,” said Dinanath Sharma, chief whip of the Maoists.

Chief whip of opposition NC, Laxman Prasad Ghimire, added that the parties will have their own provision regarding whip in their respective party statutes. “In party statutes, it will be clear on which matters the parties need to issue whip and on which matters the individual members will be allowed to exercise their conscience,” he said.

Earlier, NC, Maoists and UML were in favour of whip system while MJF and other smaller parties, particularly Madhesi parties, favoured allowing members to vote their conscience on important matters during constitution writing.

“The delay in formulating CA rules had blocked the process of writing new constitution for long. Now we have reached to one decision. We will now talk with other parties before finalising it after which the process of constitution writing will start,” said MJF chief whip Ram Janam Chaudhary. nepalnews.com sd Nov 09 08