Even a year after the formation of provincial governments, Province 5 is struggling to resolve the row over its name and its capital. The provincial assembly has finally started collecting suggestions from different districts in the province in order to decide on the matter.

 

To this end, the assembly has formed a special committee, which collected suggestions from Nepalgunj in the district of Banke on February 24. Various teams have been deployed to different districts for this purpose.

 

In Rupandehi, the team comprised provincial assembly members Santosh Kumar Pandey and Fakaruddin Khan, as well as other assembly members elected or nominated from the district. Respondents there generally suggested that the province should be named Lumbini and Rupandehi should be its capital.

 

After all the suggestions are collected, they will be presented to the provincial assembly to facilitate decision-making.

 

 The provincial assembly has finally started collecting suggestions

 

Absent chief minister

Even though Provincial Chief Minister Shankar Pokharel was expected to be present during the suggestion-collection campaign in Bhairahawa, a city in Rupandehi, he did not attend it. Locals and their elected representatives were disappointed. Some said Pokharel’s absence suggested he did not take the campaign seriously. They also speculated that his absence could mean he did not want Rupandehi to be the provincial capital.

 

Difficult questions

Saraswati Gautam, a member of both the special committee and the provincial assembly, laments that the work on finalizing the province’s name and capital is not making much progress. She says the slow pace is due to the provincial government being busy with formulating laws.

 

“A four-page questionnaire has been developed for collecting suggestions from the public,” she informs. “It has questions ranging from geographic accessibility of a place to security issues.”

 

However, the questionnaire is apparently too long and too difficult to understand. Madhav Dhungana, a local who responded to the questionnaire, claims that the questions are almost impossible to comprehend for many people, particularly those from rural areas. “Some questions cannot be answered even by members of parliament,” says Dhungana. Many respondents have returned half-filled questionnaires.

 

Dhungana also says the questionnaire contains many irrelevant questions. “The kind of questions that should have been in the questionnaire aren’t there. This means locals have been deprived of an opportunity to express their opinion on a topic of their concern,” he says.