Nepal's CPN-M ministers resign

KATHMANDU, June 20 (Xinhua) -- The ministers belonging to Nepal's Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) Friday evening tendered their joint resignation after a ruling seven-party meeting failed to reach a consensus on power-sharing.

Local leading news website THT Online quoted senior CPN-M leader and minister for Local Development Dev Gurung as saying that Chairman Prachanda has submitted the CPN-M ministers' resignation papers to Prime Minister Koirala.

"We (CPN-M ministers) will formally submit our resignation at the Prime Minister's office tomorrow," he said.

Dev Gurung told reporters after the meeting of the ruling Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) "Our party has time and again required Prime Minister to resign and pave way for the new government, but he did not accept our demands so we were compelled to resign ourselves."

"Now we will not return to the Interim Government again," Dev Gurung said, "but, the CPN-M will continue to work together among SPA. We have declared the resignation after the SPA meeting failed to reach consensus on power sharing."

The Interim Government was formed in last April after the Comprehensive Peace Accord was signed between the then government and the CPN-M to end the decade-long civil war in November, 2006.

CPN-M has become the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly (CA), with 220 seats won in the CA elections on April 10,which is more than the total of the second Nepali Congress (NC) and the third largest party the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist- Leninist) (CPN-UML) in CA.

"Months have already passed since the elections was held, but the CPN-M is not getting the chance to form the new government, so we think a serious political conspiracy is done against us," Dev Gurung said.

Before the SPA meeting, a taskforce of the three major parties had discussed the contentious issues, including Interim Constitution amendment, integrating CPN-M combatants into the Nepal Army and return of the confiscated properties. However, they failed to break the deadlock over power-sharing and presidential post after weeks of parleys.

All the CPN-M ministers handed resignation letters to Party Chairman Prachanda on June 12.

There are five ministers and two state ministers from CPN-M in the Interim Government: Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Minister for Local Development Dev Gurung, Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation Matrika Yadav, Minister for Physical Planning and Works Hisila Yamim, Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare Pampha Bhusal, Minister of State for Physical Planning and Works Padam Rai, Minister of State for Local Development Nabin Kumar B.K.