Koirala in the trap of Thapa’s conspiracy

November 5, 2003
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Kathmandu: Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala is firm in his earlier stand that restoration of parliament could be the only solution to correct the constitutional blunders supposedly committed by the monarch. He now sees the need to wage a sort of unified battle until the King yields to his demands.

UML strongman, Madhav Nepal, has just returned upon completion of his two week plus piligrimage to India. Hopefully, he will now add to the strength of the agitation that got a brake due to the festivals. Intellectuals conclude that Madhav Nepal will now act as per the wishes of his Indian friends in order to press the King to yield.

A frustrated Madhav Nepal has already hinted upon his entry to Nepal that he and his party would spare no efforts to heighten the pitch of the agitation. Mr. Nepal by this time now must have clearly consoled his hearts that his chances for the post of a consensus prime minister have now gone save any miracle occurred in between.

Prime Minister Thapa in the mean time has opened up his conspiratorial sleeve wherein he has several ploys to mesmerize the agitating parliamentary parties. The latest announcement that he is all set to conduct elections in phase is definitely a ploy to deviate the agitationists from their original track.

The fact is that the democratic parties currently in agitation neither can face elections nor can deny it. It is this that has puzzled the parliamentary parties.

However, Koirala on the other front sees that there are series of conspiracies being hatched that has been regularly minimizing the role of the constitution and the constitutional councils. Koirala maintains that the non-fulfillment of the vacant posts of the constitutional councils was a ploy engineered by both the King and his prime minister.

To recall, only a week ago, Thapa had offered his political shield to the King for the delay in the announcement of the names for the vacant post of the Election commissioner and various other constitutional posts. Originally, it was being talked here that the King is delaying the nominations and in the process been minimising the constitution. However, Thapa bluntly retaliated to those allegations and instead opined that it was not the King but him causing the delay.

Thapa’s fresh utterances made Tuesday afternoon definitely hint at the fact that contrary to the widespread rumors that the King and his Prime Minister were not in good terms, things appear different. Thaps’s offering of a political shield to the King certainly makes it clear that both the King and his Prime Minister were not only in good terms but their would-be political plans too coincide: to recall both reiterate the need to go in for the elections in order to restore the derailed constitution and the constitutional processes.

The political parties must now, if it is true, gulp bitter pills.

Thapa will not resign. This becomes crystal clear from his bold assertions that he would not settle for less than going for the polls in his address to the nation made Tuesday afternoon. The long list of forward looking reforms announced by him Tuesday will definitely take time and that he appears determined to give his assurances a concrete shape by sticking to the chair wherein he is at the moment. The political parties have fallen in his conspiratorial trap.

What prompts Thapa to announce the elections is surprising indeed. The security situation is as bad as it was at time of Deuba’s Prime Ministership. Add to this, according to Deuba, it was Thapa then who viewed elections impossible during Deuba’s time. “The man who opposed elections then is now all set to conduct the elections with the security situation taking an all time low”, so said Deuba recently. Other political parties have taken Thapa’s wish to conduct the elections as “big joke”.

Now what becomes clear is that Thapa will conduct elections. Until the elections he would not resign much to the discomfiture of the aspirants of the Prime Ministerial post currently on agitation. Is it that Thapa has been assured by the Nepali army that they would take care of the elections if conducted phase-wise. What makes the RNA so confident in this regard is also a pertinent question. Or is it that Thapa is confident that the United States would come to the rescue of his government and help support his plans in order to face the Maoists effectively. He could have concluded this from the recent stance taken by the US vis-à-vis the Maoists. The fact is that Thapa wishes to isolate the Maoists from the national mainstream. How he succeeds in his venture will have to be seen.

Or is it simply a ploy to deviate the minds of the political parties from agitation?

ON top of that, what appears certain, academic presume, is that Thapa is currently enjoying uninterrupted blessings from the same establishment which has been prompting the agitating parties to continue their agitation until the King yielded.

Be that as it may, given these ground realities what is sure is that the agitation will continue. But the intellectuals would love to see an interim order that conducts the elections.

Not so many people know that Koirala is in favor of having elections and hence has agreed to face the elections if polls declared. Does this mean that Koirala and Madhav Nepal now differ on count of the elections. Questions are being raised as to what political concessions Thapa has assured Koirala that he would provide the latter in case he supported the election agenda of the former.

Thaps’s conspiracy appears to have worked which, if true, is sure to create fissures in the agitating parties’ loose bonds.