19 parties enforce Nepal shutdown over Constitution drafting

KATHMANDU: A Maoists-led 19-party alliance today enforced a general strike in Nepal against Constitution-drafting through voting and demanded forging of consensus guaranteeing ethnicity-based identity, paralysing life across the country.

UCPN-Maoist, Joint Madhesi Front and other fringe parties have backed the agitation aimed at disrupting the process adopted by the ruling party alliance to promulgate the Constitution through voting.

The Nepali Congress and CPN-UML-led alliance has the strength of more than two thirds majority that is required to write the Constitution.

Schools, colleges, markets were closed and private and public transport services were halted during the countrywide general strike.

In Lalitpur town near Kathmandu the agitators burnt a taxi for defying the strike.

The political parties were sharply divided on contentious issues of the Constitution including forms of governance and federal structure.

Tension has escalated in the capital and other major cities as the January 22 deadline for promulgating the Constitution is about to expire.

However, Constituent Assembly chairman Subhas Nembang has expressed his commitment to initiate the process of drafting the Constitution trough the voting procedure despite the opposition's threat to disrupt it.