Kathmandu: Poor Sher Bahadur Deuba met with practically the same fate, as he have had to embrace some two and a half years ago.

However, there is a difference in his being sacked by King Gyanendra in that the monarch has not dubbed this time the outgoing prime minister as an incompetent one.

This the monarch apparently did not spell out because Deuba was already a sinking horse both in the eyes of the people and the one who trusted and elevated him to this prestigious post of the prime minister.

In a way, Deuba’s summary dismissal was not an unexpected event. Rumors were abound in the capital that the monarch was not that happy with the Prime Minister’s handling the state affairs and more so his loose talks on the matters of holding of the elections.

It could be well imagined that His majesty King Gyanendra knew that Deuba was talking of the elections in order solely to prolong his tenure in the government and nothing more than that. The King also perhaps knew that Deuba talked of elections only to keep the monarch in good humor and that he was in effect not serious about holding of the elections.

The King had to sack him this time again for a variety of reasons.

The first and foremost being perhaps Deuba’s sheer inability in bringing the Maoists to the negotiating table. In this sector Deuba failed miserably and thus lost the confidence of the monarch which was sufficient enough to land him in trouble. The second front wherein Deuba failed was his solo claim that he would go in for the polls come what may. Deuba’s blunder apparently came to the fore when the monarch was made to understand that on matters of holding of the elections even his coalition partners were not having a consensus let alone those in the streets who had been opposing the elections for a score of reasons.

The third point, a sort of blunder indeed, which apparently hurt the monarch’s feelings was presumably when Deuba began lecturing that he have had several round of talks with the men handling the security system of the country and had discussed with them the matters related with the elections which he did not in effect.

Security organs when contacted by the media did reveal that they were yet to be informed about the elections and that no formal requests have come to them from authoritative quarters to get prepared for the elections.

This was a classic example of double speak. In the process, the sacked prime minister appears to have talked double with the monarch as well who presumably told the monarch that every thing was fine and that the security agencies have assured him of their all out support.

The fact is that the security agencies did listen to the prime ministerial lectures on elections but were never told to get prepare for that eventuality officially.

The other factors that could have prompted King Gyanendra to sack his Prime Minister could be that the monarch knew well that the Maoists have had developed a sort of allergy for Deuba and had bluntly told that they would not talk with Deuba and thus providing continuity to such a government would be a futile exercise and hence the Tuesday move.

Further, King Gyanendra appears to have taken seriously the recent skyrocketing price hike effected in petro products, more so in the K-oil, by the Deuba government which have had a direct impact on the lives of the poor people and students. The King also appears to have rejected the price hike theory of the government wherein it had stated that in order to keep the NOC alive the move had become urgent. This was unacceptable to the King.

Yet another factor could have alarmed the King that the coalition partners under Deuba had made a strategy to dump all the failures of the government on the institution of the monarchy of for that matter on the heads of the prime minister. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba summarily failed to provide a shield to the monarch and the institution from the unnecessary and unwarranted onslaughts made against the King by the cabinet members more especially from the UML quota.

To recall, the UML ministers in the cabinet and the UML leaders not in government in one way or the other had been ventilating that it were the King who had been obstructing the talks with the Maoists.

All put together, the King sacked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba which he should have done much ahead.

How Deuba, the sacked one, would react to King Gyanendra’s fresh political overtures will have to be watched. How he defends his case will also be a matter to mull over seriously. More so how the street agitators will comment on February 1 step of the constitutional monarch will determine the country’s impending politics.