Three mistakes in RJPN poll manifesto

Sujit Mainali / November 28, 2017

The manifesto made public by the Rastriya Janata Party, Nepal (RJPN) for the parliamentary and provincial elections has made several assertions. South Asia Check has examined whether the following three assertions are fact-based or not:

First assertion: Although the rules prohibited issuance of whip in the constituent assembly (CA), an implicit whip was imposed to promulgate the constitution. (pg 14-15).

Here it has been claimed that the law had forbidden the political parties from issuing whips to their CA members. But Clause 141 (D) of the Constitution Assembly Rule of Procedure and Clause 3(D) of the Anti-Defection Act-1997 allowed the parties to issue whips to their CA members, exempting the person chairing that CA session.

Therefore, this assertion is incorrect.

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Second statement: Agriculture provides full or partial employment to 7 percent of the total population and the contribution of agriculture to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is 3 percent (pg 30).

 According to the Economic Survey 2016/17 made public by the Ministry of Finance, about two-thirds of the total population (around 67 percent) is engaged in agriculture and the contribution of agriculture to the GDP is 28.9 percent.

Therefore, this assertion is also incorrect.

Third statement: Tarai-Madhes supplies 200,000 tons of food grain to the hills and the mountains to meet the huge deficit of food grains of those regions (pg 30).

 According to a report entitled ‘Statistical Information on Nepalese Agriculture, 2015/16,’ the annual food grain deficit in the hills and the mountains stands at 175,061 metric tons. Therefore, it is not reasonable to claim that tarai-Madhes supplies 200,000 tons [sic] [it should be metric tons] to the hills and the mountains. Furthermore, tarai’s annual food surplus is only 103,662 metric tons.

Therefore, this assertion of the manifesto is also incorrect.

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