Two days after Maoist chairman Prachanda told an Indian news channel that he hoped to become the president of ‘republican Nepal’ in two years time, senior minister and Nepali Congress general secretary Ram Chandra Poudel today scoffed at the Maoist chairman’s ‘presidential dream’.

Speaking at a programme in Pokhara , Poudel said Prachanda “does not deserve’ to become the president of Nepal”. The Peace and Reconstruction minister also lashed out at Maoists that they were still continuing violence and intimidation.

Poudel, who also heads the government’s talk team, said constituent assembly election would not possible on November 22 if the Maoists didn’t stop violent activities and create a condition suitable for the displaced people to return to the villages. “Maoist activities are the main hurdle in holding credible elections,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, Nepali Congress (Democratic) president Sher Bahadur Deuba said Prachanda’s statement that he would become Nepal’s president in the next two years was a mere fantasy.

NC-D president Sher Bahadur Deuba paying tribute to Humla district member Netra Bahadur Shahi, whose body was found recently three and a half months after the Maoists abducted him, Tuesday, June 25 07. nepalnews.com/ANA

“He must have said that after consulting his astrologer,” Deuba, himself a known believer of soothsaying, said while talking to reporters at Pashupati Aryaghat, after the funeral rites of Netra Bahadur Shahi, an NC-D cadre in Humla district, who was allegedly killed by Maoists few months earlier. His dead body was found this week.

In his interview with the New Delhi-based CNN-IBN news channel, Prachanda had claimed that Deuba was against the constituent assembly election.

The Maoist chairman told the news channel that he would become president of Nepal with executive powers only for one five-year term.