Kathmandu: A section of the Nepali intellectuals wish to go deep into the causes and possible compulsions if any for Comrade Prachanda to abruptly keep his team out of the talks which he made it clear through his last Wednesday’s statement.
The majority of the intellectuals whom this scribe met after Prachanda’s last Wednesday’s statement, say that the Maoists Supremo would not have called off the talks for nothing. But what could be the reason? Some say that the Maoists leadership during all along the four months of talks with the establishment concluded that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was a harmless political creature and that the latter was somewhat different from his mentors in the party. Perhaps this encouraged the Maoists leadership to linger the talks as they felt that while the talks were on they could in the mean time “conserve energy” to face the establishment’s security machinery in a forceful manner should the talks failed on account of the government’s inability in heeding to their minimum demands.
Yet another section of the local intellectuals maintain that the insurgency itself perhaps remains sharply divided on account of the Maoists’ suddenly dropping the idea for a republican order in the country.
Unconfirmed reports have it that the Maoists leadership at the moment is really divided over the said issue.
Comrade Prachanda and his supporters apparently favored the dropping of the idea of a republic from their agenda at the talks, however, the other equally powerful section in the Maoists camp apparently led by Dr. B.R. Bhattarai sounded their reluctance in accepting the former’s “settling down for less” other than a republican order.
That the Maoists leadership is divided over some pressing issues could be concluded from the sudden change seen in the mood and the stance of the Maoists chief negotiator K.B.Mahara who upon attending to a “mysterious telephone call”‘ at the last round of talks in Godavari became pretty nervous and preferred to conclude the ongoing “bilateral talks” with the opposite camp.
Be that as it may, what is for sure is that there exist two powerful sections in the Maoists camp: one wishes to satisfy itself for the time being with the elections to the constituent assembly and the other section remains determined for a republican order in the country.
Now what becomes amply clear is that K.B. Mahara received the telephone call from the person who apparently advocates the idea for a republican order. However, who could be that personality is very hard to guess indeed. Is it that Dr. Bhattarai telephoned Mahara to come out of the talks? Is it that Comrade Prachanda under excessive pressure from the other camp for fear of being deposed from the current post issued the Wednesday’s statement and gave a new twist to the national politics?
Guess works only.
Some enlightened intellectuals opine that the clue to all these questions could be found if the government owned Telephone department, the NTC, divulges the “number” of the last minute telephone call to Mahara and also reveals whether the caller made the call right from within the country or from an alien land? Remarkable point indeed.