Kathmandu. Bagmati Chief Minister Indra Bahadur Baniyan is in trouble after his own party’s MPs stood against the budget for the upcoming financial year 2083/84.
Bagmati state government has brought a budget of 66.93 billion for the next financial year 2083/84. The discussion on the budget has been going on in the state assembly since June 16. However, former Bagmati chief minister Bahadur Singh Lama’s MPs have not come to Hetaunda expressing dissatisfaction with the budget. Some MPs including Lama are staying in Kathmandu.
Lama said, ‘Honorable people are dissatisfied with the budget issue. Friends also complain about the Chief Minister’s behavior and role. We do not participate in the state assembly meeting.”According to Lama, the disgruntled MPs have met Nepali Congress President Gagan Kumar Thapa and complained about the budget and the Chief Minister’s behavior and role.
They have complained to Thapa about bringing the budget guidelines and allocating the budget contrary to it, focusing on their constituencies by bringing a distribution-oriented budget, not bringing a budget according to people’s expectations, not bringing a balanced budget, not implementing the suggestions, influence of middlemen in the budget.
A member of parliament said that Chief Minister Banyan had expressed that he would pass the budget by bringing an ordinance, threatened to take action if he was absent from the provincial assembly meeting, and informed Speaker Thapa that he did not coordinate with the party’s MPs.
Lama informed that Thapa said that in the meeting with the MPs, he will discuss the necessary with the Chief Minister Baniyan. Lama said that Thapa had been clearly informed about the inability of MPs to participate in the provincial assembly meeting demanding that the budget be corrected.
According to a member of the Council of Ministers, Chief Minister Baniyan left the budget discussion and came to Kathmandu on Wednesday. He returned to Hetaunda only on Thursday evening. Baniyan tried to meet with the disaffected lama side. After coming to Kathmandu, Baniyan called and tried to meet Lama. However, an MP close to Lama informed that they could not meet.
51 percent of the members of the Nepali Congress Bagmati Province Parliamentary Party are outside Hetounda, said Surajchandra Lamichhane, a former minister. He said that the Chief Minister will bring a development-oriented, employment-oriented, income-oriented and poor-oriented budget. The old tradition was repeated. The work of accumulating the budget was done in the area of the ministers. The budget was more than the population. Honorable people have raised the issue that the middleman has become dominant in the budget, he said.
“Congress is not a party of rascals and slaves, and no matter what budget is brought, they have to raise their hands like zinc?”, he asked, “Successive budgets have been stopped.” No budget has been given to stall the projects that have completed 80 percent of the construction. Don’t you mean not to bring new plans, to complete the existing ones? It has been wrong not to give budget to projects that are directly connected with the people.
MPs from the ruling party CPN-UML have also expressed opposition to the budget. In Thursday’s meeting, UML MP and former minister Prem Bhakta Maharjan alleged that certain people and MPs have dominated the budget.
MPs say that if Chief Minister Baniyan does not resolve the dissatisfaction within his party, the dispute will increase and it will not give good results. There is a joint government of Congress and CPN-UML in Bagmati. Out of the 37 MPs of the Congress and 27 of the UML, three have resigned as members of the Provincial Assembly, leaving the two parties with only 62 MPs.
In the 104-member state assembly (after the resignation of 6 MPs), 53 MPs are required for a majority. 1 Congress and 2 UML MPs resigned to become candidates in the last House of Representatives elections.
According to the Bahadur Lama party’s claim, the majority of the Congress MPs, who are said to be in their favor, stand against the budget, and it seems that Chief Minister Banyan will face a crisis in passing the budget. Without the support of their own MPs, Baniyan will depend on the support of the opposition parties to pass the budget. MPs say that if Chief Minister Baniyan does not resolve the dissatisfaction within his party, the dispute will increase and it will not give good results.