The plan to pass three budget-related bills from the National Assembly failed on Thursday following a tussle between the ruling and opposition parties.

Discussions and endorsement of the Finance Bill, Bill to Mobilise National Loans, and Tax-related Bill were on the agenda. But the meeting was deferred till Sunday.

On June 30, when the CPN-UML was still part of the ruling alliance, the House of Representatives had endorsed the three bills through majority votes. They were then forwarded to the Assembly for discussion and endorsement.

The bills would have been endorsed without any hiccup if it was not for the dramatic ‘political deal’ between the Nepali Congress and the UML on July 1, when the two largest parties decided to form a new government to replace the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led administration.

The UML subsequently exited the Dahal government and took the opposition benches in the federal parliament.

After preliminary discussions, Bhagwati Neupane, the UML chief whip in the upper house, registered an amendment to the Finance Bill. The ruling alliance is short of a majority in both houses as the Congress, the UML, the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) and the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party (LSP) have stood against the Dahal government.

The four parties coming together means Neupane’s amendment bill would be endorsed proving that the Dahal government lacks majority. “The National Assembly was postponed in the fear that the amendment bill would be endorsed. Narayan Dahal, the chairperson, has colluded with the Maoist Centre to defer the meeting without consultation with other parties,” said a UML lawmaker. “The withdrawal of the amendment bill was the condition that the finance minister had set for tabling the budget related bills.”

Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun was supposed to table the bills at the meeting.

The tussle between the ruling and the opposition spilled into the public after the opposition parties and Pun issued statements and counter statements attacking each other. Issuing a joint statement, the chiefs of four opposition parties claimed that postponement of the meeting was a product of a malafide intention to bar the deliberations on the budget related bills in the National Assembly.

“Postponement of the House meeting has hampered our constitutional and legal authority to comment [on the bills] and register amendments. We strongly condemn such irresponsible moves,” reads the joint statement. They have accused that the postponement decision was taken unilaterally without consulting them.

National Assembly Chairperson Dahal was elected to the position on the Maoist Centre quota.

The budget related bills are considered to have been endorsed if the upper house fails to take a decision on them within 15 days of receiving them. The opposition parties have alleged that the government wants the legal deadline to pass without holding discussions so that the bills get endorsed automatically.

“The amendment was registered to revise the provision that promotes tax evasion amounting in billions of rupees,” reads the joint statement. “The minister avoided the meeting fearing that his conspiracy for policy corruption would be exposed.”

Pun’s secretariat was quick to counter the joint statement saying he had informed Parliament and the Assembly chair that the bills will be discussed on Sunday and a decision on whether to endorse it would be taken the same day.

Issuing a statement, his secretariat rubbished the allegations levelled by the four parties. It also raises a question over the UML’s intention to register an amendment to the bill that it had endorsed without questions in the lower house.

“Whether the move to register the amendment to the bill by the party that endorsed it in the House of Representatives is ethical or falls under parliamentary culture is a matter of serious concern,” reads his statement.

The Maoist Centre said the opposition parties were politicising the budget for their petty interests. “The House meeting was postponed as the finance minister had pre-committed tasks to accomplish,” Gopi Achhami Sarki, the Maoist Centre chief whip in the upper house, told the Post. “There was no need to make a fuss as the deliberations will be held on Sunday.”

All the budget related bills must be endorsed from the upper house at least a couple of days before the commencement of the new fiscal year, which begins on Tuesday. After their endorsement by the Assembly, the bills need to be approved by the lower house before they are sent to the President’s Office for authentication.