Nepal’s parliament voted yesterday to amend the country’s new constitution in a bid to resolve a months-long dispute with ethnic minority protesters demanding more political representation. 
“I announce that the Nepal constitution first amendment bill has been passed with a two-thirds majority in favour,” said speaker Onsari Gharti Magar as lawmakers thumped their desks in agreement. 
More than 50 people have been killed in clashes between police and people protesting against the constitution introduced in September, which demonstrators said left them politically marginalised. 
Demonstrators from the Madhesi ethnic minority, mainly from Nepal’s southern plains, have led a months-long blockade of a key border crossing, causing a crippling shortage of fuel and other vital supplies across the landlocked country. 
In an effort to end the deadlock, parties last month tabled a bill to amend the constitution and increase the Madhesi presence in government bodies through proportional 
representation. 
But Madhesis say the bill is incomplete and does not address their main demand to revise the federal state borders laid out in the charter that will limit their representation in parliament. 
Madhesi lawmakers walked out of parliament in protest before the bill was passed late Saturday with 461 votes in favour of the amendments.  
Seven voted against it, and the remaining 128 MPs were either not present or part of the walkout. 
The constitution, the first drawn up by elected representatives, was meant to cement peace and bolster Nepal’s transformation to a democratic republic after decades of political instability and a 10-year Maoist insurgency. 
But several rounds of talks between the government and the protesting parties had failed to reach an agreement. 
Oli receives call from US: US Deputy Secretary of State Antony J Blinken has queried Nepalese Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli about the constitution amendment proposals tabled in parliament, authorities have said.
To a query over the phone, Oli told Blinken that the amendments were aimed at addressing genuine demands of the agitating Madhesi communities and ending the unrest in Nepal’s southern belt, Xinhua cited the prime minister’s political adviser Bishnu Rimal as saying yesterday.
The call to Oli has come at a time when Nepal’s parliament prepares to make the first amendment in the new constitution to address the demands raised by the ethnic Madhesi minorities who have been running anti-constitution protests in the Terai region of Nepal bordering India for nearly five months.
More than 50 protesters including 10 police personnel were killed in the violent clashes during the agitation 
launched by the Madhesi groups.
The media reports suggested that the parliament will approve amendment proposals on the new constitution possibly on Saturday.
A month ago, the Nepal government had tabled a bill in the parliament to amend the constitution in view of addressing two demands of the Madhesi people related to proportional representation and delimitation of constituencies.
Madhesi fringe parties, under the banner of the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF), were rejecting the constitution amendment proposals, saying that it does not deal with their core demand of fresh demarcation of provincial boundaries.