Though leaders from the ruling coalition had earlier announced their intention to forward the budget ordinance to the president´s office on Sunday for endorsement, it was postponed following a meeting between President Ram Baran Yadav and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai.[break]
"The government has deferred its plan to introduce new budget for two days because the president and the prime minister during their meeting today thought it would be wiser to make final effort to find a middle-way solution in a broader political understanding to bring a full-fledged budget," prime minister´s political advisor Devendra Paudel told Republica.
Officials at the prime minister´s office said the government and leaders were working on three different options on solving the budget row.
The ruling coalition´s first priority is to introduce full-fledged budget with new programs and policies included. If it fails to garner opposition support, the government´s second priority is to bring a budget that will only give continuity to programs and policies that were endorsed by the dissolved parliament during the government led by Jhalanath Khanal and that are already under implementation. Officials said the government has already prepared a budget ordinance that doesn´t include any new program.
If there is any obstruction to both the options, the president will allow the government to bring an ordinance to introduce a budget with one-third amount of the budget introduced by Khanal government.
"Though the government´s priority is to bring a full-fledged budget, it is likely that we will eventually settle on giving continuity to the previous government´s budget," said Paudel.
The president is ready to endorse budget ordinance in case of giving continuity only for the recurring programs and in case of bringing only the one-third of the previous budget. The president´s Press Advisor Rajendra Dahal said that the head of state is ready to endorse the ordinance to issue one-third budget as per the doctrine of necessity because the country can´t be pushed into a situation without budget.
"The president is pressing the government to forge consensus only for bringing budget with new programs because the constitution doesn´t allow him to endorse budget ordinance without political consensus," Dahal explained.
In a bid to try to find a common ground, the president called top leaders from four major political forces -- UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and a leader representing Madhes-based parties -- along with the prime minister for a meeting again on Monday.
The president had earlier on Sunday convened a meeting of chiefs of the four major political forces at his office at Shital Niwas for the same purpose but ended without making any headway.
Leaders from the opposition parties including the NC and CPN-UML are unlikely to compromise on their stand against the present government unveiling the new budget because a 15-party alliance led by the NC and CPN-UML have already announced protests vowing to oust the present government.
They are insisting that the present caretaker government has no political and constitutional legitimacy to unveil an annual budget. The opposition parties have demanded that a new election government commanding broader political consensus need to be formed immediately and the same coalition should be charged with the task of bringing new budget and holding fresh elections.
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