Newly Elected Constituent Assembly (CA) Members Sworn in
The newly elected members of the second Constituent Assembly (CA) took oath under the eldest CA member, Surya Bahadur Thapa, at BICC building in New Baneshwor. Thapa, 86, took oath under President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav on Monday. Though programmed at 11: 00 am, the administering of oath of office and secrecy only started from 12:05 noon with a welcome speech from the Secretary General of the CA Secretariat, Manohar Prasad Bhattarai. At the oath taking ceremony, five members were absent including Pradeep Giri and Narayan Khadka of NC, Banshidhar Mishra and Suwarna Jwarchan of CPN-UML and Abhishesh Pratap Shah of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Nepal).
The scenario today at CA building was quite beguiling with 566 newly elected male and female CA members dressed in Daura Suruwal, Coat and Topi, Sari Cholo, Kurtha Suruwal and some also decent in cultural wearing. While the majority of CA members took oath in Nepali language, 44 members had taken oath in their mother tongues including Nepal Bhasa, Limbu, Magar, Hindi, Gurung, Awadhi, Kirant, Tharu, Bhojpuri, Maithili and other among 12 different mother languages. Still, 26 CA member seats to be nominated by the government are yet to be appointed. There is an argument among the political parties regarding the seats to be nominated that should they be appointed by the interim government or by the new government to be formed. Out of the total of 601 members, 573 members are representing 30 different political parties and two are independent CA members.
The first meet of CA members has been scheduled at 3:00 pm on Wednesday. Following the first meet, the first meeting of the Legislature Parliament will be held on 26th January. After returning from the oath taking ceremony, leaders of the mainstream political parties assured that they would deliver the constitution within a year.
Amidst the oath taking ceremony, photo journalists were restricted to enter the Constituent Assembly Hall. Chairman of Photo Journalists’ Club, Prakash Mathema, along with other journalists, objected the action by squaring the press passes to CA Secretariat. Secretary General at CA Secretariat, Mathema, has apologized for the inaccuracy and promised that such mistakes won’t repeat again.
Felicitations to the newly elected CA members and we hope that they would soon deliver an all-encompassing constitution to Nepali people.
