Kathmandu: The Royal Council led by a former Nepali Congress stalwart, Parsu Narayan Choudhary of Girija Prasad Koirala’s name and fame, is under severe attack from different hostile political quarters for having done what it should have refrained from doing.

It is mainly the congress and the communists housed in the UML who have taken the task to deride at the fresh initiatives taken by the Royal Council whose regional conference is currently on the move.

The question is being asked by the detractors of the Royal Council is that whether this constitutional institution is empowered to deride the political parties and the performances of the government(s) formed after 1990? They also ask whether the Royal Council should organize conferences of this sort wherein it spends its entire energy in making scathing criticisms against the managers of the system and more often than not propagate that the system now in place were not suitable and viable for a country like Nepal.

Others opine that the Royal Council is exceeding its constitutional limits by sending wrong messages against the democratic system and that as per the constitution; the Council has no right or whatsoever to act as a policeman of the system.

The fact is that the 1990 constitution (Article 34 Clause 18 section B) allows the Royal Council to extend “suggestions” to the constitutional monarch if he so demands. This is what has been written in the constitution and nothing more than that.

Now since the criticisms have begun, intellectuals wish to analyze the feelings both ways: those who differ with what the RC has been doing and those who favor and claim that they have been doing does in no way go contra to the provisions enshrined in the constitution.

The dissenters claim that the duty of the RC should be only to extend advice to the King and that to do so they need not go in for such propaganda as what they have been doing now. This section maintains that the timing of this regional conference and the messages that were emanating from the RC quarters do not bode well for the nation and its democratic system.

Honorable Choudhary summarily dismisses such wild theories and claims that there is nothing to panic and that their duty was simply to inform the King the prevailing political situation of the country.

However, of late, Honorable Choudhary and his predecessor, Dr. Rayamajhi, have been ventilating their minds in a manner that warns the managers of the system. To add to the suspicion of the detractors of the RC’s ongoing conference, former prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bist said Monday at the inaugural session of the RC meet that it was only the monarch, the guardian of the State, who could arrest the deteriorating situation and that the King should be allowed (implied) to act with sufficient powers. Former Prime Minister Bist also made it abundantly clear that the restoration of the now dissolved parliament was next to impossible and that the monarch was not interested in reviving the parliament as demanded by some political leaders.

Question now arises as to how Mr. Bist could know the King’s mind that he was not in favor of the revival of the parliament? Was he informed about this by the King or he spoke without reading the King’s mind? Bist better knows the fact.

Bista’s declaration against the revival of the parliament has come at a time when a large section of the people have begun talking in favor of the restoration of the parliament including some UML stalwarts, for example, Pradip Nepal, Bam Dev Gautam and minister Pant in the Deuba’s cabinet.

A few days ago, Dr. Raymajhi too had said that the King be allowed to act as the political parties have failed in arresting the deteriorating situation of the country.

What appears to have enhanced the wariness of the detractors of the RC symposium is a model paper presented by a former Army Chief, Sachhit S. Rana who says in his exhilarating document, inter alia, “patriotic people are expecting an active role from a constructive monarch”.

Rana in his paper also demands a new structure wherein the monarch should have enough space for the protection and promotion of the constitution. In the process, Rana’s concept also demands that the King should be allowed to become active in the new structure.

Rana, however, does not reveal what he meant by the new structure? Is he saying that the country should now go in for an entirely new constitution wherein the King is allowed greater powers than what he has been enjoying under the existing constitution?

Mr. Rana, a vocal critique of the political parties formed after 1990 summarily rejects the demand of the Maoists for a constituent assembly.

This means Mr. Rana concludes that the country’s ailments would vanish if the monarch were allowed enough space in a “new structure in a newly drafted constitution”.

The King might not have any idea as to who was talking what pushing his name at conferences of this sort, however, his name is being dragged some how or the other.