A meeting of the Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (PDCC) that has been scheduled for 5 pm today is likely to prepare consensus report on contentious issues of new constitution.

UCPN (Maoist) vice chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, who is in the meeting of top leaders of major four parties, informed eKantipur that discussions are in heading towards positive directions but parties are yet to strike a final deal.

Eight days ago, full House Constituent Assembly (CA) has directed PDCC to modify the draft constitution to incorporate suggestions provided by people on various provisions of constitution.

Though PDCC was entrusted to prepare report within four days, it could not completed within the deadline due to the dispute among parties on demarcation of state.

Top leaders of four major political parties on Wednesday said that though they are “close to consensus” on disputed issues of constitution drafting, they still need to go the extra mile to settle the issues such as number and demarcation of federal units, secularism, and provisions on citizenship.

The leaders said they have agreed to incorporate Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari and Kanchanpur in the hill province. However, the disputes over Kailali and Saptari could not been resolved till late evening.

On the delineation of federal provinces, the three parties, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik, have more concerns while UCPN (Maoist) has said that it is willing to be flexible on the issue. The main opposition, UCPN( Maoist) has agreed to settle on a six-province model, provided that other contentious issues—secularism, citizenship and inclusive and proportional representation of margnalised communities—are settled in a package.