General Convention Of RPP And K Thapa

General Convention Of RPP And K Thapa

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

The general convention of Rastriya Pranjatantra Party (RPP) started at Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu on February 17, 2017. Chairman of RPP Kamal Thapa attempted to trick everybody to support him. K Thapa has not left his devotion to the evil-spirited demon Prithvi N Shah even if he has practically left the support for the monarchy, as he accepted the federalism. This is the first general convention after the unification of RPP and RPP-Nepal.

The opening of the convention started off garlanding the large portrait of PN Shah that held a sword in his right hand indicating anybody speaking out or doing anything against him would face the sword. It has been 240 years since Nepalese have been facing the sword and have been living under the threat of getting cut off. However, K Thapa wanted to continue the threat of the sword to the Nepalese in the name of the national unity and nationality.

K Thapa is a shrewd politician no doubt about that, as he has said that the federalism is the reality even though his party and he dislike it. He correctly understood that nobody could turn back from the federalism unless s/he was so blunt as Chitra Bahadur KC, CP Mainali and Narayanman Bijukchhe. They did not like to accept the reality but they were just like mice causing nuisance to an elephant.

K Thapa also proved that he could fake the statistics. Speaking at the general convention inauguration ceremony, Thapa has said that Nepal has more than 90 percent Hindus, and the country should be made a Hindu State but as any liar he did not say from where he got the data. He has surely falsified the data as everybody including Mr Thapa knows that Nepal has the equal number of Buddhists, too because all the believers worship both the Buddhist and Hindu deities.

Not taking into consideration of Islamists and Christians, Mr Thapa needs to satisfy the more than 90 percent Buddhists to impose the Hinduism on them. If Mr Thapa does not know even Hindu and Buddhist deities revere each other I would like to tell him even Lord Pashupati honors Lord Buddha wearing a Buddha crown once a year. Mr. Thapa must have forgotten Lord Karunamaya is the Matsyendranath for Hindus and Avaloketsvor for Buddhists. If Thapa were a clean researcher then he would find that almost all Nepalese deities have the characters of both Buddhism and Hinduism.

Mr. Thapa also needs to understand that Nepal has given birth to Lord Buddha, Lord Shiva and deity Sita. So, it is no wonder why Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that Nepal is the holy land. Buddha was born in Lumbini. Shiva dwells in Himalaya. Sita was born in Janakpur. So, Nepal belongs to Hindus and Buddhists, Mr. Thapa naively tries to ignore it advocating for making Nepal of Hindus only.

Then, repeating the question why Thapa has been advocating for making Nepal a Hindu State; again Thapa wants to trick all Nepalese voters to vote for his party not knowing that Nepalese voters have been very smart to fall into the snare of any political deceiver. Nepalese voters have been smarter than the politicians. So, Mr. Thapa could not garner votes if he continued to advocate for the Hindu state only even as much as he had done in the past.

In the last general elections, Mr. Thapa’s party could hardly garner less than five percent of the total votes. None of the constituencies elected any one of the candidates of his party directly. Thanks to the proportional representation system the Constitution has adopted he got 24 seats in the parliament otherwise his party would not have any representation not to mention the fourth largest party he could claim for.

Probably, even the families of Thapa’s party members did not vote for it because if they did then his party would have more seats in the parliament than what he has today. The main theme of the party was the Hindu state and the monarchy. Smartest voters knew that the monarchy had been dead forever why they should vote for it no matter which party had been advocating for. The voters also knew that voting for the Hindu state meant inviting the religious controversy.

Nepalese know that the religious harmony has been the age-old tradition in Nepal. They did not want to break up this tradition. Only recently, Mahendra forcibly imposed Hinduism as the State religion in 1962 against the will of the majority of the people. At that time, Mahendra had been holding the sword as PN Shah did and would cut the tongue if not head of anybody speaking out against him.

For the information of Thapa, his party would be the target of all voters opting for the religious harmony, and for all the people that did not want any religious chaos or religious disharmony not to mention the religious war. People not willing to have the religious protests and protests against imposing Hinduism would certainly not vote for Thapa and his party.

Mr. Thapa’s as some of the Hindu fanatic’s belief in more than 90 percent of the Hindus would vote for making Nepal a Hindu State is nothing but illusion. As already stated Nepal has more than 90 percent Hindus is the fake statistics. And also not all Hindus vote for making Nepal a Hindu State for the already mentioned reasons is not true at all.

Even the false statistics of 90 percent and more people are Hindus in Nepal Mr. Thapa has put forward comes magically true then Mr. Thapa tragically forget to consider among them are the democratic-minded and communists that did not believe in any religion. So, how many of Mr. Thapa’s Hindu voters would vote for his party remains to be seen even in the context of the past performances of his party.

Now, the nationality Mr. Thapa advocated for. One of the meanings of the nationality is the patriotic sentiment, the English dictionary states. Again, patriotic means ‘having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support for one's country’.

Let us talk about the devotion of Thapa and his party to the country. In his previous incarnation as the Pancha, Mr. Thapa’s devotion had been to none other than the then monarchy. Was the monarchy the country, Thapa? Certainly, it was not for the common folks but the monarch might be everything for the Panchas and surely for Mr. Thapa at that time. So, Mr. Thapa’s nationalism had been nothing but the devotion to the monarchy.

Even after the Panchayat had been the thing of the past, and Panchas had been transformed into RPP members, devotion of Mr. Thapa to the monarchy had not diminished. As late as 2006, Mr. Thapa as the then home minister dedicated his life to the last monarch, and tried to suppress the waves of the people’s uprising against the monarchy taking the lives of the innocent people. Thus, Mr. Thapa had been stained with the blood of the people that fought for the nationalism in the real sense.

In the name of the nationalism, Mr. Thapa as the deputy prime minister in the coalition government of Prime Minster KP Oli pushed the country to the unofficial Indian blockade causing the tremendous sufferings to the common folks. Mr. Thapa and his Prime Minister Oli did nothing to mitigate the sufferings of the common folks from the shortage of fossil fuels and other supplies not to mention the short supply of electricity due to the blockade the Oli government had created for more than five months starting in September 2015 and ending in early 2016. Again, is it the devotion of Mr. Thapa to the country means the people? Certainly not, Mr. Thapa has no concern for the country in the past and even now.

So, Nepalese voters would not vote for the Thapa’s nationalism. Mr. Thapa’s nationalism is nothing more than the fake as of his statistics of the Hindus in Nepal. So, Nepalese voters would not be caught in the snares Mr. Thapa set up in the name of nationalism.

Mr. Thapa has proposed the liberal economic policy of his party. If the general convention accepts it then it is the attractive policy. However, in view of his past performances as the Pancha and Pancha minister, Mr. Thapa would use this slogan as the vote catching means rather than giving the free hand to the people to the economic development.

Probably, Mr. Thapa had not forgotten that in the past the Panchas had the monopoly on the economic policy and the economic development. He must know how nice to have the monopoly on anything. Consequently, common folks were at the mercy of the Panchas causing the sluggish economic development during the dark days of the Panchayat from 1960 to 1990.

However, Mr. Thapa becomes sincere to his commitment to the liberal economics then voters including the author of this article would vote for the economic liberalization. So, Mr. Thapa wants to have at least some votes then he needs to keep his economic policy as goods as his words.

Is there a chance that Mr. Thapa will keep his words? Let us see how he did to his colleagues.

At a press conference held at the Reporter’s Club in Kathmandu on Friday, February 17, 2017, one of the influential leaders of RPP Prakash Chandra Lohani said that he would run for the chairperson of the party breaking up the previous agreement they had reached on unanimously electing a chairperson, the news on theimalayantimes.com stated on February 17, 2017.

In a statement issued on February 17, 2017, Prakash Chandra Lohani said that an agreement recently reached among himself, Thapa, Pashupati Shumsher Rana and Lokendra Bahadur Chand to elect Thapa unanimously for the chairperson of the party had been invalid as the draft of the party statute being presented in the convention would not include provisions made in the agreement, the news on theimalayantimes.com stated on February 17, 2017.

Lohani said that the election symbol of the party and election of the party office bearers were ignored in the party’s revised statute going against the agreement the leaders of both RPP and RPP-Nepal had reached. RPP has the plow as the election symbol RPP-Nepal has a cow. Lohani said that the leaders had agreed to keep the plow as the party’s election symbol as the party cadres and voters had an emotional attachment to it but the draft statute of the party did not include it.

Lohani also said that his party was for electing at least half of the office bearers to the central committee in the general convention but the draft statute proposed to appoint all the office bearers except for the chairperson to the central committee.

If Mr. Thapa could so easily try to trick his colleagues into making him a unanimous chairperson of the party he would surely try to deceive everybody into voting for his party no matter what false claim he had to make for that matter.

At the inaugural ceremony of the general convention of RPP on February 17, 2017, President of NC Sher Bahadur Deuba, Chairman of CPN-UML KP Oli, and Chairman of CPN-Maoist-center also current Prime Minister Prachanda spoke in turns.

Top leaders of two major parties such as Nepali Congress and CPN-UML traded the sarcasm with each other at the inaugural session of RPP’s general convention in Kathmandu, the news on thehimalayantimes.com stated on February 17, 2017.

Speaking at the inaugural function, Chairman of CPN-UML KP Oli said if the RPP took up a right policy then it could “give a blow” to other parties, except for CPN-UML. “This is possible,” he cleverly said, “Others, beware…”

Directly addressing Oli, President of Nepali Congress Sher Bahadur said, “Oli jee, beware! RPP had garnered more votes in Jhapa [your home district],” he reciprocated with appropriate wit. The CPN-UML chairman, however, had already left the venue, the news stated.

Prime Minister Prachanda arrived at the General Convention venue in the late afternoon, and spoke in praise of the RPP and its leaders. Referring to their role in the Constituent Assembly during its crucial moments, Prime Minister Prachanda dubbed the RPP leaders as “mature leaders in the Nepali politics” who, he said, facilitated the promulgation of Constitution despite their differences over certain agendas, the news stated.

In an indirect reference to the RPP’s disposition to the revival of Hindu State, Prachanda said that though the RPP’s policy the general convention would endorse was not at a par with his ideologies, he wanted to work together with the party, the news stated.

“Talking about RPP, I find it close [to me] somewhere, feel like linking up with it. Emotions touch somewhere. Don’t go away,” he said, in a flattering tone, to conclude his speech. With the RPP already on board his Cabinet before the unification of RPP and RPP-Nepal, Prachanda anticipated the support from the unified RPP for the proposed Constitution amendment, which the main opposition CPN-UML vehemently opposed, the news stated.

Finally, K Thapa did not win the office of the chairman of the unified RPP unanimously. However, Prakash Chandra Lohani did not run for the office rather Pradeep Bikram Rana ran for the office but lost to Thapa in the election held in Kathmandu on February 20, 2017. It was just a warning to Thapa that he had no monopoly on the party leadership.

February 21, 2017