Kathmandu: The Article 127 of the 1990 constitution is creating news.
Its first use by the monarch last October elevated the ranks of RPP leader, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, whose poor and dismal performance both in satisfying the agitating parties and delivering goods to the people is well known to all. Albeit this establishment did bring the Maoists to the negotiating table and managed two round of talks with the insurgents. No less an achievement indeed but that too appears dwindling at the moment and no body knows when the third round of talks with the rebels will resume for the latter have been accusing the “old regime” to be hatching conspiracy against them by effecting changes in the government.
The new government under shrewd politician, Surya Bahadur Thapa, who is known for his conspiratorial politics, has yet to spell out its agenda on the talks with the Maoists. Whether the Thapa regime will go ahead with the same team or will effect certain changes in the members of the team to resume talks with the Maoists is yet uncertain. The fact is that Thapa is yet to announce the team of his cabinet.
In the process, the Maoists are loosing their patience and been voicing their concern for the talks giving an impression that they were desperate for the talks but concurrently see a “grand design” being hatched by certain “alien” forces to sabotage the talks.
The alien force whom they consider to be their number one enemy is the United States of America for reasons best known to the rebels only.
Question now could be asked as to why the Maoists consider only the US as their enemy but not other countries in the neighborhood who more often than not poke their nose into the internal matters of this country.
More candidly speaking, the Maoists have never uttered a single word against India, which supposedly canvassed openly this time around in favor of S.B.Thapa and made him the country’s Prime Minister. The Maoists are yet to spell out their patriotic and nationalist “remarks” on how they took the former Indian Ambassador Krishna Venkatesh Rajan’s overly stretched stay in Kathmandu? To recall, Mr. Rajan was in Hyatt Regency Hotel for all along a week or so and left for his home country India only when he became sure that the next prime minister in Nepal would be of his choice: Mr. Surya Bahadur Thapa.
Similarly, the parties now in agitation too have yet to speak out their minds on how they took Ambassador Rajan’s political overtures which dismissed the possibility of Madhav Nepal as a consensus candidate from becoming nation’s prime minister?
Simply making vague statements and pointing towards the “foreign hands at work” will not do. What is the demand of the time is that all the agitating forces must come up with strong worded statements against India, if it maneuvered Nepali politics at all, that henceforth they will not tolerate any Indian pressures in Nepali affairs. They should have already come up with such statements. They haven’t so far. And in all likelihood, they will never issue any statement that accuses India of interference.
The fact is that most of the agitating parties at one time or the other have enjoyed India’s blessing to ride to power in Nepal and hence issuing statements against India would mean capping the possibilities of enjoying Indian support in the future.
Poor Madhav Nepal though was a consensus candidate not only of the agitating parties but had been presumably backed by a sizeable chunk of the Nepali population as well had to face defeat at the hands of his own long time close friend, Ambassador Rajan for whom Thapa became more closer in the given scheme of things in Nepal than Madhav.
Rajan came, he saw and conquered.
Political watchers here express their anger for Rajan who during the Mahakali treaty ratification sought the exclusive support of this Madhav Nepal who to a large extent remained instrumental in ratifying the said treaty.
Analysts conclude that for India, person doesn’t matter. What matters for India is who could take care of her political interests in Nepal.
Thapa, the incumbent prime minister apparently enjoys the political support from both the Indian establishment and from the main opposition-the Congress under Sonia Gandhi.
To recall, Thapa is considered to be a very close friend of India from the time of the indomitable lady prime minister, late Indira Gandhi.
Be that as it may, Thapa’s elevation to the ranks of the prime minister does raise questions: who make prime ministers in Nepal?
The rest for the intellectuals to mull over.