Sujata Koirala, daughter of Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala and a party leader, has started secret consultations with Maoist leaders including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal about joining the government.

As other party leaders were engaged in discussing strategies of protest against the Maoists for trying to sack the army chief Tuesday afternoon, Sujata quietly walked out of the Central Working Committee meeting at party headquarter, Sanepa to meet the PM along with other Maoist leaders waiting for her at finance minister Baburam Bhattarai’s residence, Pulchowk.

Although, the details of the content discussed during the meeting is not known, it is understood the Maoist leaders and Sujata discussed ways of including NC in the government and the row over sacking the army chief. Maoists have offered the defense ministry to Sujata if she can convince her party to join the government.

PM Dahal, who had offered NC president Koirala to join the government in a brief one-on-one meeting, Tuesday morning turned to his daughter after Koirala did not give a clear response.

Other NC leaders are strongly against the idea of joining the government. As Sujata was secretly discussing strategies to coax NC leadership to join the government with Maoist leaders, NC spokesperson Arjun Narsingh KC told journalists there was no possibility of NC joining the government.

Sujata has also come in controversy within the party for expressing remarks supporting the government’s plan to sack the army chief in a parliament meeting last week.

PM bunks CC meeting to watch documentary

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal was ‘busy’ watching a documentary when he was supposed to be attending a meeting of the Constitutional Committee on Tuesday.

The CC meeting -that had a very important agenda of naming the new Chief Justice-was postponed indefinitely citing PM’s ‘busy schedule.’

The incumbent CJ Kedar Prasad Giri is retiring on next week. The process of appointing a CJ can take up to 15 days as the named CJ has to go through a parliamentary hearing before the president appoints him.

Keeping aside more important agenda, the PM went to Russian Cultural centre with a group of ministers to watch a documentary made in Hindi about insurgency in Nepal.

The PM and his ministers spend two hours Tuesday afternoon watching ‘Hiunka Lapkaharu’ made by an Indian film-maker.

The documentary features the development and various aspects of the decade long insurgency in Nepal. It shows footages of top Maoist leaders Prachanda, Dr Bhattarai, and Barsha Man Pun among others speaking in Hindi about the insurgency. nepalnews.com ta Apr 29 09