Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli has instructed the party’s provincial assembly members not to vote for the budget in six out of seven provinces in the country.
In a virtual interaction with assembly members from all seven provinces on Sunday, he criticized the budgets of all provinces except for Koshi Province.
UML’s Hikmat Bahadur Karki is leading the government in Koshi Province. However, his government has fallen into a minority after CPN (Maoist Center) and Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) withdrew their support. This means Karki will have to secure a confidence vote in the provincial assembly within 30 days.
After his government fell into uncertainty, Karki prorogued the budget session of the provincial assembly and issued the budget through an ordinance.
In a statement, UML’s publicity department said Oli instructed assembly members to strongly oppose wrong policies and programs in their respective budgets.
Regarding the ongoing protests by pro-identity groups demanding the renaming of Koshi Province, Oli stated that unnecessary activities are being carried out to change the province’s name, which was endorsed by a two-thirds majority of the Koshi Province Assembly. “The province’s name is related to the Koshi civilization, and it encompasses the entire province,” Oli told the assembly members.
According to the statement, Oli told the assembly members that the name would not be changed through processes and procedures outside the constitution. “Communal and violent activities will not be acceptable to us,” Oli said during the interaction.
