December 20: The ruling alliance has formed a three-member taskforce to hold discussions on US-funded project Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) with other political parties in order to reach a consensus.    

According to the state-owned national news agency RSS, a meeting of the ruling alliance called by Prime Minister and Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba took a decision to this effect on Sunday.    

The taskforce comprises senior leader of CPN (Unified Socialist) Jhalanath Khanal, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki and CPN (Maoist Centre) Vice-chairman Narayankaji Shrestha.    

The taskforce has been entrusted with the responsibility of holding consultations with all political parties to resolve various issues that are under consideration in the parliament and resuming the House proceedings, RSS further reported.    

The ruling coalition decided to form the taskforce after an all-party meeting called by PM Deuba could not reach a consensus regarding the MCC due to the differing views among the ruling parties. The ruling parties including Maoist Centre and CPN Unified Socialist were in favour of endorsing the grant agreement only after amendment.

The meeting ended inconclusively due to the absence of the main opposition party CPN UML.