Kathmandu: The political parties continue to threaten the King. The King is attentively listening to their grievances.

The political parties wish a say in the impending government-Maoists talks but the existing political conditions do not allow them to soften their already declared stances vis-à-vis the Lokendra Bahadur Chand’s “unconstitutional” government.

The government under Chand remains undeterred and bluntly says that even if the political parties do not support, the talks with the Maoists will proceed.

This declaration has practically created a sort of panic in the camp now led by Girija Prasad Koirala and Madhav Nepal.

The latest government declaration came the other day when Prime Minister Chand himself told a gathering in the Western region that the talks with the Maoists will proceed smoothly even if the political parties did not extend their cooperation as usual.

Going a bit more further, minister Ramesh Nath Pandey angrily told a Pokhara gathering that the present establishment will not wait ad infinitum the disgruntled political parties to come to attend an all-party meeting that would facilitate the government-Maoists talks to be held soon. Minister Pandey went to the extent that he almost threatened the political parties that they will be left far behind in the country’s political process if they declined to attend the government sponsored all-party meet.

What is surprising here is that both the Prime Minister and the Minister have talked tough against the “discordant four” after the leaders of the four party alliance plus the leader of the congress-Democratic were granted a Royal audience last week. Here lies the significance of the prime minister and the minister’s changed tones.

However, it would be too premature to conclude that both of these two distinguished personalities of the present establishment exhibited their wrath against the political parties sensing the “mood” of the monarch or did it on their own. They could have done on their own presumably when they could conclude that the Maoists too were ready to go in for talks even without the participation of the major political parties. This sounds logical for if one carefully analyzed the Maoists leaders’ recent utterances and their penchant for initiating talks at the earliest what comes to the fore is that the government and the Maoists have come more closer to each other than what the political parties in the other camp might have in their imagination.

Some quarters maintain that the eagerness of the Maoists for the talks is to share power in the yet to be an all-party or for that matter an interim government that will perhaps take shape when the talks with the government will proceed “smoothly”.

The Maoists have yet to refute such allegations.

This clearly means that the government and the Maoists will take up the challenge of restoring peace in the country come what may. In the process, it appears, they both wish to seen to portray or for that matter project the major political parties as “villain of peace” which is what is slowly and very steadily taking shape in the minds of the lay and the ever “marginalised” population of the country who wish the prevalence of peace and peace only. For the laymen, the cost for peace is immaterial. They need peace at any cost.

The King is a force which the Maoists have time and again reiterated after they came to the open. So are the parliamentary political parties by all account. The third force which has suddenly emerged as a very powerful force in the country is indeed the Maoists insurgency. Given this new power balance in the existing scheme of things in the country, it is very likely that if the parliamentary forces continue to undermine the existence of the two other equally powerful forces might bring the Maoists and the monarchical forces at one place which time permitting might begin neglecting the parliamentary forces to the extent that this force might begin retaliating against the two much the same way as the Maoists did in the recent past.

The adamancy and the obdurate behavior currently being exhibited by the forces that claim to be the sole guardians of the parliamentary system is alienating them all from the common masses. Sooner the political parties understand the people’s sentiments the better.

That the Maoists too have become allergic of the mainstream political parties comes to the fore when one listens to the incessant “explanations” being furnished by the Maoists leaders in convincing the discordant political parties that they have come to the talks with no ulterior motives and that they haven’t as yet struck any clandestine deal with the “old regime”. Despite the apparent sincere efforts of the Maoists, the parliamentary parties appear not to digest the Maoists theory and hence they suspect designs to undermine the role of the political parties at time of the talks that are yet to begin.

The government is ready for talks. The Maoists have appear more interested in the talks. The political parties suspect the very motives of those who have announced the ceasefire and have already agreed upon the code of conduct for the talks. The King and the international community wish that Nepal regained its lost stature of a land of peace. In the process, frankly speaking, the parliamentary parties are losing their face in the eyes of the people who now suspect the very motives of the political parties.

“If the talks are not held on time or if the talks fail this time, it would be concluded that the talks have failed only because the major political parties made it to fail for obvious political reasons”, commented a political science teacher at the Tribhuvan University on condition of anonymity.

The major political parties must see the writings on the wall and act accordingly, added the same political scientist.