Maoists form alliance to draft a pro-communist constitution

Nepal's five leftist parties today announced a working alliance to exert pressure on major parties in the Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution in line with the ideology of China's communist leader Mao Zedong.
The formation of the alliance is considered as an attempt to draft a pro-Communist constitution as against the efforts being made by ruling parties, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, which are in favour of drafting a fully democratic constitution.
This may pose threat to the Constituent Assembly if one signatory of the peace process, the UCPN-Maoist, opts to stay out of it.
In a statement, Unified CPN Maoist Chairman Prachanda has threatened to walk out of the Constituent Assembly while C P Gajurel, Vice-chair of CPN-Maoist, the splinter group, said that the aim of the alliance was to take UCPN-M out of the Constituent Assembly.

This would indicate that the alliance might create pressure on the NC and UML for writing a pro-Communist Constitution.
Prachanda has claimed time and again that the nation will plunge into serious crisis if the major parties try to settle contentious issues of the new constitution through majority votes and not take into account the issues raised by them.

He claimed that despite being the largest party in the dissolved Constituent Assembly, his party never tried to settle the issue through majority voting and sought consensus till the last minute.
Addressing a function organised to announce the formation of alliance, Prachanda said the alliance was formed after a long exercise and self-criticism among all the leaders and was a historic development.

He also informed the journalists that the alliance would start peaceful movement to press for their demand.