Current Affairs

The ruling parties have expressed concern over President Bidya Devi Bhandari's decision not to  authenticate the Citizenship Bill.  

The Bill was sent to the Head of State for authentication following its re-endorsement by the House of Representatives and the National Assembly. 

A meeting of the four ruling partners at Baluwatar concluded on Wednesday that the President failed to implement and protect the Constitution by not certificating the Citizenship Bill within the constitutional deadline. 

clearing legal hurdles to acquiring citizenship based on descent by the children of those parents who had acquired citizenship by birth.

"The President's move has denied citizenshiip based on descent to children of those parents who had acquired citizenship by birth their Constitutional right to obtain the citizenship," said the press note signed by leaders of the ruling coalition. "It has violated people's sovereignty, constitutional rights and basic democratic norms and values."  

Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, former Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Centre ) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal, former Prime Minister and CPN ( Unified Socialist) Chair Madhav Kumar Nepal, and former Deputy Prime Minister and Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal's Chair Upendra Yadav signed the note.

Student groups protest

The All Nepal National Free Students Union (ANFFSU)-Revolutionary, the student wing of the CPN (Maoist Centre), took to the streets on Wednesday in protest of President Bidya Devi Bhandari's decision to reject the Citizenship Bill.

The President refused to sign proposed amendments into law for the second time, on Tuesday, despite being passed by both the Houses of Parliament. The deadline to do so expired at midnight on Monday, affecting more than half a million people awaiting national identity cards.

Hundreds of demonstrators, affiliated to the ANFSU-Revolutionary, protested the move as an unconstitutional step. The head of state is required to verify the Citizenship Bill according to the provisions of the Constitution.

Chanting slogans against the move, the protestors also burned effigies of the President in New Baneshwor area of the capital.

With RSS nputs