Kathmandu: Events are likely to unfold fast this week. The five party agitations appear not to be being met politically. Instead, highhanded use of government machinery has begun to antagonize even the already partisan press. Locked down Campuses will mean the spreading of the agitation nationwide and the government appears utterly incapable of being the necessary shield between increasingly virulent political organizations and the King to which the government says it is accountable too.

Prime Minister Surya bahadur Thapa’s days are thus duly numbered but how he will go is any body’s guess. Thapa is among those politicians ranked among the agitating parties who have never left their seat of power willingly. What “kick” he will give is thus awaited.

Already, calculated rumors of Thapa denying the King his resignation have been circulated. Perhaps more mischievously if Thapa’s handling of the agitation is to be analysed, the harm has already been done. The use of the police force to pick republican ranting slogan students’ from an otherwise peaceful demonstration brought in the students’ as participants in a sagging agitation. The declaration of “violence prone” areas prohibiting dwindling numbers is the agitation has dispersed the agitators’ city-wide to hide their actual numbers. The attack on an already partisan but disorganized media now gives the media ruse to blatantly support the agitation. This strange phenomenon does merit deeper analysis.

The attack is on the King against “regression”. A government that says it is responsible to the King is hardly the target of anti-regression. Otherwise Mr. Thapa has used his office well to organize for elections at the expense of the Monarchy. This is what exactly the agitating parties want for themselves.