Kathmandu: The UML General Secretary, Madhav Nepal, is the consensus candidate for the post of the country’s next Prime Minister.

The agitating parties have reluctantly forwarded Madhav’s name for the said post.

They have done so because the meager parties other than the Congress and the UML consider not fit for the post for they lack mass support. For example, the NMKP and Jan Morcha are the parties which enjoy meager support of the population and hence appear shy in even accepting the post if the big-2 so propose in their favor.

The NSP-Anandi Devi group got a political shock the day they were denied invitation by the palace for the meeting and the subsequent refusal of its agitation partners to push their name in the invitee list of the palace. The fact is that the big-4 forgot that the inclusion of the NSP-A in their group has made them big-5 or else they would be reduced to big-4 only.

The NSP-A appear to have got the required political message from its major partners and thus it apparently has changed its views vis-à-vis the agitation. Though the leaders have taken it easily but the fact is that the NSP-A rank and file have taken it as an insult.

How the NSP-A supports the movement in the days ahead will have to be watched.

A good number of second generation leaders of the NC under president Girija have not digested its president pushing the name of Madhav Nepal for the post of the prime minister for they consider that making Madhav the country’s chief of the executive would boomerang on their own party.

They contend that if Singh Durbar were allowed to the UML, what would be left for the congress given the fact that the Maoists have already dominated the political spaces left in the villages and the districts. This is indeed the reality.

“The congress president by pushing Madhav Nepal’s name is inviting the total decay of the party”, say majority of the congress leaders who now openly differ with Girija’s preference.

Koirala is in a fix now. He too has got the point but is unable to revert his unilateral decision.

“I have proposed the name of Madhav only on condition that he would revive the parliament”, says Koirala to those who differ with his views.

But many in the congress don’t believe that once Madhav is seated in power would mind keeping his promises. They say that the first thing Madhav Nepal would do is to establish his party’s strongholds in the villages and the districts, which by all means will weaken the congress: both the Congress-K and congress-D.

“Reviving the now dissolved parliament would be a tough job for the king as well for he will not prefer to go against the decision of the judiciary”, says a political analyst.

If pressed hard, continues the analyst, all that the King could do in this regard is that he would again consult the judiciary which in turn might upheld its previous decision. The judiciary would not wish to set a bad precedent, adds the analyst.

Be that as it may, apart from Madhav Nepal, there are others also in the race for the prime ministerial post. For example, Surya Bahadur Thapa of the RPP is one among the many who have been aspiring for this coveted post.

Rumors have it that former Indian Ambasador K.V.Rajan is here as usual to “manage” Nepal’s crisis. No wonder that Nepal’s political crises have solutions in New Delhi. Thanks the sagacity of Indian establishment that they exhibit their sincere concern for Nepal events and more often than not “push” their own prescriptions. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Sources close to the RPP say that Rajan is lobbying for Mr. Thapa though he at the very personal level enjoys my-dear relations with Madhav Nepal since he managed to seduce Madhav Nepal at time of the Mahakali treaty ratification in the Nepali parliament. But that is apparently not enough. Rajan needs a person more dynamic and effective who could understand the Indian “susceptibilities” and “sensitivities”.

S.B.Thapa is a personality who is rumored to be in the good book of India and hence his choice as the prime minister in Nepal.

If this is true then even if the five parties push the name of the UML General secretary, the personality to head the next cabinet would be Thapa and not Madhav Nepal.

But, analysts opine, Madhav Nepal could be the best choice for the post of the P.M for if he is picked up could defuse the present political crisis and could run the nation in an effective manner no less than Thapa.

” Madhav Nepal is the single personality who could give a positive direction to the nation in the present scheme of things in the country and thus the people could trust on him”, opined Lal Babu Yadav, a political scientist at the Patan Multiple Campus.

There are others also who wish to see Madhav Nepal as the country’s prime minister.

But how India and United States would react to Madhav’s choice?

India would not mind even a communist prime minister until its political interests remain secured in Kathamandu. So far as the U.S is concerned, it would certainly not take this possibility in good taste. For it might calculate that the UML leadership in Singh Durbar in many ways than one would benefit the maoists who have yet to come to terms with the United States.

But yet, one top officer at the US Embassy is supposed to have met Mr. Nepal Sunday at his private residence. This means that the US will not mind the UML’s elevation to this position provided the party assured the US that the Maoists will be “taken proper care of.”

The situation is still fluid. The search continues. But the man fit for the post is still missing. ( Compiled at 4 PM Tuesday afternoon).