'What is this Social Media Regulation Bill? What is the official view of the Nepali Congress on this? Yesterday you stood against it. Where are you today?'
Leader of the main opposition party and Chairman of CPN Maoist Center Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the ruling partner Congress has remained silent on the social media bill. Addressing the House of Representatives meeting on Thursday, Dahal, who is also a former prime minister, criticized the Congress for not speaking even when a bill that violates freedom of expression was introduced.
President Dahal also questioned the conscience of the Congress leaders. He questioned why Prime Minister KP Oli could not stand the opposition, but why did it happen in the Congress.
'Prime Minister KP Oliji can't tolerate anything other than opposition, even constructive criticism. This is a proven fact time and time again. If he can, he wants to make the whole country like his party CPN (UML) very question-free, very free from criticism and especially very free from conscience. Therefore, I do not consider it strange that he is trying to trample the constitutional right of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. As the Prime Minister, he has made such an attempt many times before. So I don't question him,' he said.
Questioning the Congress, President Dahal asked, 'What is this Social Media Regulation Bill? What is the official view of the Nepali Congress on this? Yesterday you stood against it . Where are you today? Are you cooperating only for power or has there been a change in the political approach? Does the Congress want a question-free and conscience-free Nepal like Oliji? What is your ideology?'
Mentioning that the pre-election alliance is a sin when they are in alliance with the Maoists, the Congress leaders have now changed their words, he said, "Congress will fight alone, now those friends applauded a lot for saying that they will not cast their vote except for the tree". In the recent days, UML will now have only two parties in the country and they will fight alone to form a permanent government. You have formed a new power alliance saying that the politics of alliance has ended forever in the country. But what happened in the last local body by-election? There was an alliance between the two big parties. Not only the alliance, you also gave each other your electoral symbols on rent. The leader of one party contested the election under the symbol of another party.'
President Dahal commented that the anti-alliance grumblings heard earlier in the Congress were nowhere to be heard this time, and said, 'In the election of journalists and other professional organizations, there was an alliance between the Congress and the UML with wonderful unity . You thought, Maoists will end after this. Is it done? Couldn't, but almost revived as the first party.'
