As the countdown for declaring Nepal a republic begins with only weeks left for the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly to take place, King Gyanendra has reportedly said that he just wishes for a “respectable status” even though that means according him cultural and religious rights only.

This was conveyed by Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Nepal) chairman Kamal Thapa to CPN-Maoist Chairman Prachanda during their meeting at the latter’s Nayabazaar residence, second in as many weeks.

During the nearly hour long meeting in which, another senior Maoist leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai was also present, Thapa, who is nowadays seen in his new avatar of palace’s unofficial emissary, tried to learn about the Maoist leadership’s proposal of affording “honorable exit” to the monarch. Thapa also told the Maoist leadership that King Gyanendra wanted the Maoist leadership to uphold the April 11, 2006 agreement between royal palace and the political parties, which effectively ended King Gyanendra’s royal regime and led to the formation of the seven party government and jump started the peace process.

Although the details of the secretive agreement between the king and the political parties held on the mediation of Indian special envoy Karan Singh, who is himself the erstwhile Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir has not been made public, Thapa told Prachanda that both parties had agreed to end only “dictatorial monarchy” but not the entire institution of monarchy and that during his many meetings with various political parties King Gyanendra was assured that some form of monarchy would be retained.

Thapa told Prachanda that the king wants the Maoist leadership to abide by this understanding and also conveyed to Prachanda that the king intends to remain as the “symbolic” king having “cultural and religious rights”.

In the earlier meeting with Thapa Prachanda had proposed that if the king voluntarily abdicated then he would be accorded a respectful place and could even be allowed to be active in politics. Dr Baburam Bhattarai had also said that if the king voluntarily gives up his throne then he would be given “cultural rights”. The Maoist party later clarified that giving cultural rights to the King didn’t mean that he would remain as a cultural king.

According to sources, Prachanda told Thapa the people are not in favour of retaining any form of monarchy and that the king should leave his throne by respecting the sentiment of the people. The Maoist chairman also warned that if he didn’t do that then a difficult situation would arise.

Top Maoist leaders have stepped up their rhetoric against the king in recent days, saying that if he doesn’t voluntarily leave his throne then they might even consider overthrowing him out of the palace by using force. nepalnews.com ag May 12 08