Kathmandu: Madhav Nepal by this time must have come to his senses. It must have been a time for his for a sort of repentance for his political blunder in making a declared political enemy his own commander.

Repentance makes a man perfect it is widely believed. However, in case of Madhav Nepal, the damage is already done. But then yet not every thing is lost for him. He still continues to be a consensus candidate of the five party alliances for the post of the prime minister though his friends in the coalition don’t subscribe to his candidacy.

This means that Madhav Nepal is a consensus candidate of his party alone.

But then who played trick that apparently damaged the prospects of Mr. Nepal from becoming the next prime minister?

The blunt answer is the growing lust of power that so clandestinely crept into the minds of Koirala that played the role of a villain against Madhav Nepal.

Indeed, Madhav Nepal was a consensus candidate for the post of the chief of the executive only when the post appeared remote. However, with Thapa’s resignation, the special chair housed in the Singh Durbar began attracting Koirala and Mr. Nepal both.

The lust for power and the excessive lust of power in Koirala made the latter even to forget his own declaration made some one year ago at time of the initiation of the agitation against agitation that if every thing went well Madhav Nepal would be the country’s next prime minister. The rest of the smaller parties agreed to recognize Mr. Nepal as a consensus candidate.

Promises are made to break and this is what has happened. Koirala has broken the promise and has been presenting himself as the next prime minister. His close aides have been openly saying that Madhav Nepal was their common candidate “then” and now when things have changed, the previous agreed upon candidacy has become totally irrelevant and hence redundant.

Mr. Nepal has reasons to be angry. But with whom? Koirala or his political aides? Or with the leaders of the smaller parties who too have been now subscribing to Koirala’s views for unexplainable reasons.

The fact is that Madhav Nepal is the lone crusader for the post of the prime minister who definitely enjoys his party’s unflinching support in that regard. The rest including even the communists like Rohit and Sherchan appear against Madhav Nepal being picked up as prime minister.

A betrayed Madhav Nepal still possesses glimmers of hope and is working hard in order to convince the palace that if provided chance he could prove himself as the best prime minister the country ever had.

The palace remains non-committal on Madhav’s passionate plea.

The fresh position is that the FPA failed to announce the name of their consensus candidate. The FPA, to add insult to injury, has mandated the two stalwarts, Koirala and Nepal, to finalize the name of a consensus candidate. Unfortunately, both are contenders of the same post. Sad enough, the country has only one chair for prime minister. Predictably, neither Madhav can willingly push the chair towards Koirala nor Koirala has that magnanimity that he would willingly accept Nepal as prime minister.

The fighting continues which has allowed the palace to maneuver.

Presumably, the NC and the UML must not be in good talking terms even due to the chair crisis. Nevertheless, both the parties are working hard to win the favors of the smaller parties in their own favor.

Analysts say that if Madhav Nepal is denied the post of the prime minister simply he heads a party of the communists then why Madhav or for that matter his party-the UML- should stick to the ideals of a democratic system to which they have been more or less exhibiting their loyalties over the years.

Understandably, if Madhav Nepal is denied this time the lucrative post, he and his party will bring heaven down to earth come what may. If the UML comes to know that it was Koirala who damaged Madhav’s position of the prime minister, what chaos the party will bring in Nepali politics only the Almighty knows in advance. More so if by chance Madhav is replaced by Koirala himself then the Himalayan unrest that is to follow later could well be imagined.

Be that as it may, the UML by time now must have realized that they did accept a personality as the agitation’s commander who never have had a bit of love and respect for the communist ideology.

Let’s see what cards still remain under the sleeves of the UML, which might clear the hurdles and make the party’s boss the country’s prime minister.

The result: the venue of the conflict has changed. It is neither the Ratnapark nor Putali Sadak. The conflict is not with the King now. The conflict is in between NC and the UML for the post of the prime minister. The fight is in between Teku Durbar and the Balkhu Durbar. The tail parties housed in the agitation appear calculating whom to support so that greater political benefits could be bagged.

Nevertheless, the parties have kept their agitation intact in order to send encouraging signals to their cadres for understandable reasons.