Vice President Parmananda Jha today defended the controversial public speech he gave on Wednesday accusing the political parties of dillydallying in the constitution-making process and describing the army integration special committee as being unconstitutional.

Vice-president Parmananda Jha
Speaking to reporters in Biratnagar, VP Jha said he was “compelled to speak up” as the parties breached the interim constitution by speaking against federalism. He also insisted that the media and the parties misinterpreted his views in order to drag him into controversy.

Maintaining that the job of the President and the Vice President is to protect the constitution, Jha said he simply wanted to caution the parties [against violating the constitution].

Jha appeared pretty confident when he said he had not done anything that would call for an impeachment motion. He instead retorted saying the parties that are talking about impeachment deserve to be impeached.

The Vice President’s reaction came a day after two major ruling parties – CPN (Maoist) and CPN (UML) – raised strong objection to his comment on the role of the parties and the army integration special committee.

A meeting of joint panel of the two parties held on Thursday concluded the Vice President’s views as “unconstitutional” and urged the Prime Minister to follow this issue. nepalnews.com mk Nov 07 08