Kathmandu: The King remains undeterred. His Prime Minister hints that he wouldn’t resign come what may.
Both instead hint that the country might go to the polls.
The agitating political parties are left with no option other than to watch Prime Minister Thapa’s conspiratorial ploys aimed at lingering his tenure in government.
The Maoists have stepped up their violent activities and so have done the State security machinery resulting in the killings of many Nepalese whether they belonged to the RNA or for that matter the insurgency.
Nepali academia and the international bodies based in Kathmandu are watching how slowly but very steadily that Nepal is approaching the abyss.
Are we close to being declared a “failed State”? is the general question now being asked by the intelligentsia and the laymen.
Deteriorating law and order situation and the panic that has been generated by the two-way battle, sliding economy and bad politics does indicate that we are close to be told a failed state soon.
On the contrary, the nation’s Prime Minister and his cabinet members are giving an impression that should the political parties cooperate the establishment, parliamentary elections could be held.
Political parties wish to reject the government’s claim out rightly.
“With no sign of Maoists coming to the talks, the government’s claim to go in for election is simply a ploy to lengthen the tenure of the government”, said a Congressite from the Koirala camp.
Similarly, a source close to Deuba-Congress says that the Prime Minister is pretending that the security situation has improved which is totally false. “It has rather worsened than what was during the Prime Ministership of Sher Bahadur Deuba.
The President of the Deuba Congress, Sher Bahadur Deuba, the other day told a newspaper that given the spate of violence, talking of having elections in the near future is simply a futile exercise and nothing more than that.
The fact is that security situation in the country is so bad that the government will have to think twice prior to the announcement of the elections.
“Unless the State army comes to the rescue of the voters and the candidates fighting election, elections can’t take place”, says a source close to the RPP whose party is in power at the moment.
However, the constitutional monarch too appears determined to allow Thapa to continue till the elections. But how the elections will take place in the given circumstance neither the King nor his Prime Minister reveals.