Out of the 275 members of the House of Representatives, 220 MPs were present on Sunday, but as a quarter of the MPs were not present, the bill to grant citizenship in the name of the mother did not proceed.
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The agenda of the Parliament was blocked on Sunday as even a quarter of the MPs did not attend the meeting. Due to the lack of a quorum of MPs, the bill to grant citizenship in the name of the mother could not be passed.
Home Minister Ramesh Akhtar proposed that the 'Nepal Citizenship (Second Amendment) Bill' should be considered. But when the proposal was presented for decision, even a quarter of the MPs of the Parliament were not in the meeting. According to Parliament Secretariat spokesperson Ekram Giri, 220 MPs were present when the meeting started. When the proposal was presented for decision, there were only 68 MPs.
53 people were absent from the 275-member House of Representatives on Sunday. Two are suspended. There is a constitutional provision that the number of MPs should be at least a quarter, i.e. 69, while presenting a proposal to the Parliament for decision. Article 94 of the Constitution states that no question or proposal can be presented for decision in any meeting of the Parliament unless one-fourth of the total number of members are present.
When Speaker Devraj Ghimire presented the bill for decision, opposition RSVP whip Nisha Dangi demanded to determine the quorum. Then Speaker Ghimire rang the bell for three minutes and counted. He adjourned the meeting when it was found that the number of MPs present was only 68.
Home Minister Ramesh Akhtar said that a bill has been introduced for legal arrangements to solve the problems seen in obtaining citizenship. It is necessary to give equal rights to women, the situation where the mother is not searched when the father is seeking citizenship, and the father is searched when the mother is seeking citizenship cannot be called equality. The bill has been introduced to ensure that no one is discriminated against in obtaining citizenship, to ensure gender equality and facilitate the citizenship distribution process," he said in the meeting.
He promised that the necessary regulations, standards and procedures will be made as soon as the bill is passed by the federal parliament. While the minister was saying this, the MPs from the ruling party were leaving the meeting one by one. As a result, the proposal could not be passed.
Mahesh Bertaula, the chief whip of UML, said that there is a problem of quorum when top ranking MPs in the party do not obey. He said that the main responsibility of reaching the quorum in the parliament is the ruling party's, and he commented that sitting for a long time is also a problem. The House of Representatives meeting, which started at 1 pm on Sunday, was adjourned at 6:30 pm.
'Party office bearers who have been MPs and MPs in the standing committee, who sit on the first bench, have a habit of showing up and making noise. Chief whips are facing problems because they did not stay till the end," said Bertaula. He said that there is a problem not only in the ruling UML but also in the Congress that the top leaders do not sit in the parliament. Comparatively, he said that due to the absence of MPs from Congress and UML, the bill did not move forward.
Congress MP Ramhari Khatiwada, who sat till the end of the meeting, said that only 60 MPs from the ruling party and 8 MPs from the opposition were present in the meeting, so the Citizenship Bill could not move forward.
It is said that some MPs of our party went to take a bath at the Kumbh Mela in India. Some parliamentarians attended the meeting and went to wedding and fasting parties," Khatiwada said, "There was an important bill for children to get citizenship through the mother's name. But the seats of the first and second rows of the top leaders of the parliament were found vacant in the ruling and opposition parties. I saw all the ministers when the Prime Minister was on the rostrum. Ministers should be responsible to the Parliament, they should not forget that the Parliament has formed the government.'
Even though all parliamentarians must sit in the meeting whether they are in the opposition party or the ruling party, the parliamentarians left to prepare for Monday's meeting, said Dangi, a whip of RSWP. Dangi said, "Because the meeting stayed late, they left asking that there is not enough time to prepare for tomorrow. "It is serious for the MPs of the ruling party to leave the House even though the House has three days a week and four days off in the legislative session." Congress MP Khatiwada said that the chief whip and the whip were unable to fulfill their responsibilities.
A minister said that there is a pretense that MPs have come to the House only to fulfill the purpose of allowance. The minister, who did not want to be named, said, "If this is the case, arrangements should be made to attend the meeting twice." If the MP attends the meeting of the Parliament, he/she gets two thousand as meeting allowance and transportation allowance.
