Nepal aims to become federal state: Minister

Kathmandu, Jan 31: Nepal aims to become a federal state after constituent assembly elections this year, a minister said, a move that would help end centuries of central rule and appease regional groups complaining of neglect by Kathmandu.

The troubled Himalayan nation will also increase the representation of the ethnic Madhesi people in parliament by giving them more seats after two weeks of violent protests in which nine people died, he said.

Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula said leaders from the poor nation's ruling alliance and the former Maoist rebels had agreed in principle to turn Nepal into a federal democracy.

''The new constitution to be prepared by the constituent assembly to be elected in June will decide about the federal democratic structure,'' Sitaula told sources late yesterday.

Parliamentary constituencies ''will be redrawn on the basis of geography and population'' he said, adding that this could increase the total number of seats in parliament which now stands at 205.

This month, the government and the Maoists approved an interim constitution that saw the former rebels join a provisional parliament.

But many, including the ethnic people of the Terai region say the new constitution had not given them adequate representation in parliament.

Violent protests across Terai, the fertile lowlands in the south also known as Madhesh, have cast a shadow over a landmark peace deal that declared an end to the decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people were killed.

Madhesi activists say they have been discriminated against by the ''hill-dominated'' ruling elites who run the mainly mountainous nation, resulting in under-representation in parliament, government, the army and police.

Despite making up nearly 30 per cent of Nepal's 26 million people, Madhesis, who are ethnically and linguistically closer to neighbouring India than to the Nepalis living in the hills, occupy only about 15 per cent of seats in parliament.

The government says ''reactionaries'' and royalist supporters of the former regime of King Gyanendra that ended in 2006 were fuelling the unrest in Terai and has rounded up three royalist former ministers.

REUTERS>