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Nepali Congress leader Ram Sharan Mahat said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact is in the interest of Nepali people.

He said so during a meeting of the party’s executive committee held on Thursday.

Leader Mahat said that MCC is appropriate for the construction of transmission lines, substations and roads in Nepal.

“The MCC project is a very important draft for Nepal. Nepali Congress should play a vital role to endorse the MCC from the Parliament,” Shashanka Koirala said while talking to journalists after the meeting.

During the meeting, the leaders also discussed upcoming local level elections and sister organisations.

He said that Nepal Congress should contest the local elections without forging alliance with any parties.

Two leaders of the ruling coalition—CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Nepal said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) cannot be endorsed in its current form.

They said so during a meeting with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in Baluwatar on Thursday.

Dahal and Nepal said that the MCC compact should not be endorsed in its existing form without addressing the issues raised by the people.

The Prime Minister has been piling pressure on the leaders of the coalition to endorse the MCC.

Prime Minister Deuba had also sought support of the main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and Janata Samajbadi Party Chairman Mahantha Thakur for the parliamentary ratification of the MCC.

The United States has given the government of Nepal a deadline of February 28 to pass the MCC.

Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Kumar Nepal held a meeting in Baluwatar on Thursday.

During the meeting, the top guns of the major political parties discussed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), local level elections and House obstructions among other issues.

On the occasion, PM Deuba opined that the MCC should be tabled in the Parliament as soon as possible.

Dahal and Nepal, however, said that the MCC should not be endorsed in the status quo without addressing the issues raised by the leaders on the compact.

PM Deuba is in favour of endorsing the MCC agreement from the Parliament promptly.

But Speaker Agni Sapkota has been expressing his reluctance to table the MCC in the Parliament.

Earlier on September 11, PM Deuba had sent a commitment letter to the MCC headquarters requesting for four to five months to secure the required majority in the House of Representatives for the ratification of the compact.

Dahal, however, has been piling pressure on the Prime Minister to take the decision on the MCC only after the local elections.

PM Deuba told Dahal that the issue of MCC should be resolved from the Parliament.

Reminding Dahal that the United States has given the government of Nepal a deadline of February 28 to endorse the compact from the Parliament, PM Deuba said that they should find the way out at the earliest, the Baluwatar source said.

Of late, the Prime Minister has started holding discussions with the main opposition CPN-UML and other political parties seeking support  in MCC endorsement from the Parliament.

The government signed a compact agreement worth $500 million with the government of the United States of America in September 2017 to build transmission lines, substations and roads in Nepal.

India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh began voting on Thursday in the first of a series of local elections that will be a key test of the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party.

With a population almost as big as that of Brazil, keeping power in the bellwether state would give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a boost in its bid for a third successive victory at nationwide parliamentary polls due by 2024.

Television footage from polling stations showed queues of people bundled up against the winter cold as they waited to cast their votes.

Defeat in Uttar Pradesh, or in any of the other three states it holds that also stage elections this month, would add to pressure on the Hindu nationalist party amid criticism of high unemployment and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If the BJP loses, especially in UP, that will be a big setback," said Rahul Verma, a fellow at New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Policy Research. "But you can call this a semi-final. The game in 2024 will be very, very different."

For the main opposition Congress party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, the calculation appears more bleak. Of the five states where voting begins this month, it holds only Punjab in the northwest.

"Congress desperately needs to win states, even if it's smaller states, just to get back in the habit of winning. Otherwise they are in trouble," Verma added.

Failure to do so would lead to more questions over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather have all served as prime ministers but who has struggled to dent Modi's high ratings.

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During campaigning, the BJP has appealed to large Hindu majorities in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Both are home to important holy sites, some of which are disputed by Hindus and minority Muslims.

Opinion polls suggest the party will win the vote in both states, despite some opposition parties seeking to mirror its Hindu-first agenda and appeal to its support base.

"We have seen all political parties playing within the same field of the BJP," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of a biography of Modi, on the campaign so far. "That is one of their biggest successes."

Congress and activists have criticised the approach, saying that it risks stoking communal tensions that have flared up into deadly violence in the past.

Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk who is seeking re-election as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, touted his record on fighting crime, and said that law and order took precedence over religion.

"My government dealt with the issues of corruption," he told a small group of reporters on Monday.

"Law and order has improved markedly and police action during my rule was taken against gangsters and mafia groups without discriminating on the basis of their caste or religion."

Uttar Pradesh, home to around 200 million people, votes in seven phases ending on March 7, while most other states begin polling in the coming days. Counting in the five states begins on March 10, with the results expected soon after.

The BJP faces a challenge from Congress in the northeastern state of Manipur, while in the western state of Goa, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is trying to expand its reach beyond its traditional base of India's capital New Delhi.

The fifth state, Punjab, looks like a close contest between the ruling Congress, AAP and several regional parties.