Madhesi, indigenous groups unite against 11-province model

KATHMANDU, May 19: The Broader Madhesi Front (BMF), an alliance of cross-party Madhesi lawmakers and the Indigenous Nationalities Joint Struggle Committee (NJSC) have united to launch a protest against the agreement to federate country into 11 provinces.

The BMF and NJSC Saturday singed an agreement saying the protests would continue until their demands for federalism, fully proportional electoral system, proportional representation of all communities in state mechanisms, self-governance and provincial autonomy were met. 

“So far, we had been organizing our protests separately, but the recent political development created an environment to launch our movement altogether,” NJSC secretariat coordinator Parshuram Tamang told a joint-press conference with the Broader Madhesi Alliance.

As per the understanding NJSC will support an indefinite banda called by the Madhesi alliance across Tarai districts from May 18, while the BMF will support NJSC´s call for a nationwide general shutdown for May 20-22.

Similarly, they will jointly stage a sit-in in front the Constituent Assembly (CA) building in New Baneshwor on May 23-27 to exert pressure for ´timely´ promulgation of the new constitution with their concerns addressed.

Speaking at the press conference, Chairman of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum (MPRF) Upendra Yadav said both groups would support each others in their struggle. “From now on, we will struggle jointly for our common causes,” Yadav added.

“The forms of our struggle will be changing, but we will be agitating until our demands are addressed,” said Yadav, adding, “We will seek to find the solution through the street protests as the Rana regime and monarchy were brought down by the street protest itself.”

The alliances of Madhesi and indigenous nationalities also expressed their solidarity with protests being organized by Tharu and Muslim communities separately.

In a separate context, Yadav said the BMF was not satisfied with the prime minister´s address in the house on Friday saying it was not per the understating between the Madhesi alliance and the Maoist leadership.

“The prime minister did not clearly mention that the UCPN (Maoist) retraced from the 11-province model in his statement,” said Yadav.

Following understanding with the UCPN (Maoist) the BMF had agreed to call off its program to obstruct the parliamentary procedures.

Meanwhile, five student wings of ruling Madhes-based political parties and Nepal Indigenous Nationalities Students´ Front organized torch rallies in the capital on Saturday evening demanding identity-based federalism. They have called a three-day general strike starting Sunday.