CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed his happiness over the endorsement of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) with an interpretative declaration.

Speaking at a press conference organised at his residence in Khumaltar on Monday, he said, “I am very happy that the MCC has been endorsed from the Parliament. Now, the country has been saved from being driven into deep conflict.”

Dahal defended the proposals and stances put forward by him and the party earlier on the US aid project.

He said that the $500 million US grant project was dragged into the controversy after then Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali during his visit to the United States said that Nepal has also become a part of the Indo Pacific Strategy.

Chairman Dahal said that he floated an alternative to ratify the MCC by endorsing the resolution motion after the then taskforce of the Nepal Communist Party suggested that the MCC should not be passed in its current form. But, the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli ignored his idea, he claimed.

Dahal claimed that he had an agreement with Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba to table the resolution motion to pass the MCC.

“I had also suggested Nepali Congress and UML forge consensus to endorse the MCC to safeguard the constitution and the country,” he claimed.