KP Oli’s First Few Steps Toward Downhill Journey

KP Oli’s First Few Steps Toward Downhill Journey

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Not more than a few days have passed since Prime Minister KP Oli took the oath of office from the president on February 15, 2018, Oli has already started off making his journey toward downhill first garlanding only the statue of Man Mohan Adhikari: the communist leader immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, and then a few days later offering a flower garland to General Kalu Pandey of Prithvi Narayan Shah at the site where Kirtipurians killed him; thus Oli is sowing the seeds of discontent among the descendents of the victims of the outrageous king Prithvi Narayan Shah. Oli has the term of office for five years but if he were to move in this way he might shorten this period, as he has been sowing the seeds of dissatisfaction not only among the descendents of the victims of the invader Prithvi but also among the entire populace that had suffered from the atrocities of the Shah dynastic rule for two-and-a-half centuries. Surely, Oli has been making steps on the regressive path.

Before inaugurating the “Dahichok Tourism Festival” on February 21, 2018, Prime Minister KP Oli and his spouse garlanded General Kalu Pandey at the site where assaulting Kirtipur Kalu Pandey got killed thus Oli lionizing the invader in the name of unification of the country at the same time insulting the brave Kirtipurians that fought against the invaders for freedom from the tyranny of atrocious Prithvi and his generals. Oli also pledged to develop Dahichok into a tourist spot, which was correct to do but he erroneously highlighted the Kalu Pandey in the name of the nation building on February 22, 2018. Thus, the ugly head of the regressive elements have been showing up under the leadership of Prime Minister Oli.

Prime Minister Oli is the people’s representatives and the chief executive of the people then he needs to develop “Dahichok,” as the site where brave Kirtipurians had fought against the aggressors and even managed to repulse the assaults several times making a huge loss to the attacker appalling Prithvi Narayan Shah whose dynastic rule had kept the entire Nepalese including the family of KP Oli poor for the two-and-a-half centuries. Probably, KP Oli either did not know it or he deliberately ignored it praising the tyrants.

If anybody had a chance to take a look at the facebook, s/he would find the picture of KP Oli at the time of the first time-elected representative to the House of Representatives. He was wearing a number of flower garlands and smeared with vermillion as the symbol of the victory celebration. At the same time, he was wearing a flip-flop means he was so poor that he had no money to have a regular shoe. Now, he lives like a prince if not a king at his Balkot residence in Bhaktapur. Where all those resources had come from for him to build such a mansion and live like a sheikh? Then what the people could anticipate from such a man except for reviving the already dead despots for centuries at the cemetery.

Now, Oli needed not to invoke the names of Kalu Pandey or his boss Prithvi Narayan Shah for keeping the sovereignty and independence of the country, and building the nation, as the strength of the patriotic Nepalese is enough for all these things as have shown during the blockade Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had imposed at the time when Oli was a prime minister for the first time. Nepalese had firmly stood behind Oli and saved the country and surely Oli from the fall Modi tried to cause. Obviously, Oli needed not call on any other dead figures such as Kalu Pandey or Prithvi Narayan Shah, and he needed not build any memorials to them for keeping the country united and preserving the sovereignty but Oil needed to keep the people that had put him in office happy otherwise he was bound to fall no matter whom Oli would pray to; and Oli would not be able to keep the country in one piece, too. So, he needed to live in the present time, and appeal to the current generation of Nepalese, and keep them satisfied if not happy running the corruption free rather than corruption proof administration.

So, Prime Minister Oli needed to go to the Kirtipur and apologize to the descendents of the victims of Kalu and his boss Prithvi for the sufferings they had to endure for centuries. They had the trauma of the atrocities Prithvi had caused them consequently leading the kirtipurians to hate Prithvi and to set the tradition of spitting him at the time of the birth anniversary of Prithvi for what Prithvi did to their ancestors.

Then, Oli needed to apologize to the entire populace across Nepal whose ancestors had been the victims of the cruelty of Prithvi and his army for Oli said to build a memorial to Kalu at Dahichok insulting the entire populace otherwise they would not only despise Oli for bringing back the memory of the extreme hardship and atrocity Kalu had caused, and even his party but also would do whatever possible to remove him from the office of prime minister, as Oli represented the regressive force rather than the people that had voted for his party and him in the last provincial and federal elections.

Newly elected to the member of the federal House of Representatives and also the resident of Kirtipur Krishna Gopal Shrestha also member of the Oli’s party needed to apologize to the Kirtipurians and the entire population whose ancestors had been the victims of Kalu and Prithvi for Prime Minister Oli said to build a statue of Kalu at the site where brave Kirtipurians killed him for saving them from the atrocity of Kalu and his boss Prithvi.

Then, Krishna Gopal Shrestha needed to persuade his boss recently appointed Prime Minister Oli to build a memorial to the brave Kirtipurians at the spot where they killed Kalu, and where they demonstrated the bravery to save the City State from the intruders, and Shrestha needed to appreciate the bravery of Kirtipurians, and thank the descendents of the brave Kirtipurians for standing up to the attackers.

In addition, Krishna Gopal Shrestha needed to convince his boss also Prime Minister Oli of the need for building a memorial to the brave and highly ethical Kirtipurian soldier at the site where the soldier stopped his comrade-in-arms from killing Prithvi Narayan Shah stating a soldier should not kill a king following the ethic with which they had been trained rather than Oli irresponsibly speaking of building a statue of Kalu now, and of Prithvi in the past.

Kirtipurians have preserved the stone on which Prithvi tripped and fell down, where a soldier was about to kill him but another soldier saved him following the high ethic of the soldier not killing a king. Kirtipurians have made it a memorial to the soldier with the so high ethic, and the humiliating situation Prithvi faced, and then certainly the atrocities Prithvi had committed after the victory over Kirtipurians. Oli and Shrestha needed to upgrade that memorial Kirtipurians have managed to preserve so far to honor the brave and ethical soldier even living under the autocratic regime of the Shah dynastic rule for centuries.

Prime Minister Oil was surely badly informed of the history otherwise he would not say that he would build a statue of Kalu nor of Prithvi, as they had been the causes of sufferings of Nepalese for so many centuries. So, Oli needed to remove his ignorance of the Nepalese history, and needed to relieve the descendents of the victims of Prithvi and his general Kalu from the sufferings of their ancestors in the east and the west wherever Kalu and Prithvi committed horrendous atrocities killing innocent people, and packing opponents in bags and throwing them in the Arun River, and similarly killing many opponents and even innocent people without mercy in the west.

Oli needed to dig out the facts in the history of Nepal, and find out whose ancestors had been the victims of marauding gangs of Prithvi and Kalu that had looted the assets, and then killed them. In order to keep the sovereignty of Nepal, Oli needed to build memorials to the victims of these marauding gangs, and to give justice to those people awfully died in the hands of terrible army of Kalu and his boss Prithvi. In the 21^st century only with the people’s mandate, any prime minister would be able to keep the country intact, and safeguard its sovereignty but not invoking the dead general and building a memorial to him.

Similarly, Prime Minister Oli needed to apologize to the Madheshi people what Oli did and spoke against Madheshi people and against their aspirations for being equal citizens, at the time of the election campaign and in the past, and now, commit to amend the constitution to meet the aspirations of the Madheshi people, as the constitution is the unifying document and should be of the entire populace rather than of any three or more political parties. Oli needed to compensate the families of those killed at the time of his elections campaign for the loss of the loved ones, and even commit to build memorials to those killed. That might be the only way for Oli to strengthen his political position and probably to return back as a prime minister after the completion of the first term obviously after five years again.

Next, immediately after taking the oath of office narrowing down his circle of respectable political leaders, Prime Minister Oli knowingly or unknowing committed some blunders such as garlanding only the statue of Man Mohan Adhikari: one of the many communist leaders. He said that he had learned from Adhikari many things; that was fine but the sacrifices of all political leaders in the past and even today, and of the known and unknown martyrs have made him possible to be a prime minister otherwise Oli would be plowing land in Jhapa or somewhere in the east, as any farmers do now. Of course, Prime Minister Oli went to pay tribute to the statue of martyrs at Lazimpat in Kathmandu.

In order to enlarge the political circle, Prime Minister Oli needed to garland all the political leaders that had sacrificed everything for breaking up the shackles of the Shah dynastic rule, and to put the people’s sons and daughters at the positions of the Head of State, prime minister, ministers, and many high elected or appointed offices rather than promising to build memorials to the outrageous general and the king.

Oli needed to be the prime minister of all Nepalese rather than of only one or two or three parties. He needed to encompass and accommodate as many political leaders and the people of different background and groups or ethnicity as possible in other words needed to make his cabinet and his entire decisions based on the principles of inclusiveness. The irony is that Oil tends to go back to the dynastic rule giving every undue credit to the dead political criminal personalities rather than those that sacrificed everything for making the person like Oli to be the prime minister.

Last but not least, the killing of people in the King Birendra style means bringing the prisoners to the street at night, and then shoot them at the point blank range without bringing them to justice has been the practice again. That was one of the reasons why the dynastic Shah rule had to go forever. Oli needed to note it and stopped it happening again as did a few days ago.

The police said that a notorious gang leader Manoj Pun and his helper Som Ale were shot dead in a police encounter at Devdaha in Rupandehi at 3:00 am on February 21, 2018. The Nepalese media had widely questioned how those criminals reportedly arrested in Goa, India and brought to Nepal could encounter with the police at the time they were on the area bordering with India suddenly. If it were not a stage-managed police killing what was it. Such killing had denied justice to the criminals who needed to be brought to justice rather than indiscriminate killing. Such things made the fall of the rulers. Oli needed to note and keep it on record.

Pun has been charged with involvement in multiple killings of the leader of Youth Association Nepal: the CPN-UML affiliated youth wing Durga Tiwari in Devdaha last year, of construction entrepreneur Sharad Kumar Gauchan in Kathmandu around six months ago and of a timber entrepreneur Basanta Poudel in Devdaha two months ago, the news on http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/22058 stated.

Another news in http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/22074 has the following story:

“In the last four years, the police have shot dead five criminals in close encounters. They include Dinesh Adhikari alias Chari, Kumar Ghainte, Prabin Khatri, Manoj Pun and Som Ale. Khatri was killed in Laliltpur. He was an alleged drug trader.

Pun had studied up to grade 10 at Kerawani Secondary School in Rupandehi. He later quit school and joined the Young Communist League of the CPN-Maoist initially. Later, he did contract works for almost 11 years. He again joined the Youth Force of the CPN-UML and even became the regional treasurer of the Youth Force.

After he started getting involved in criminal activities, the CPN-UML expelled him from the Youth Force. He then started taking revenge on the party’s businessmen and traders. Police said he knew the background of every businessman and trader in the district and even at the national level.”

http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/22074

No more words are required than already stated in the news why Pun got killed but Prime Minister Oli should not allow such extrajudicial executions because the rule of law did not permit such things to happen otherwise people would think what would be the difference between the rule of King Birendra that loved the extrajudicial executions of the political opponents, and the rule of the first elected Prime Minister Oli of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal following the constitution the people’s representatives had crafted. The killing of Pun might be coming closer to what King Birendra did in the past, as Pun was apparently rebelling against the CPN-UML of Oli, according to the news.

All these things bring us to the question whether Prime Minister Oli had been involved in irregularities in administration and even in corruption in the past when he had been the prime minister for nine months.

For example, Prime Minister Oli’s Minister for Energy Radha Gyawali once said in reply to an apparently very difficult question to the decision she had made said, “You guys better go to and ask Prime Minister Oli” in other words she had no words to reply as she must have been making the decisions under the pressure of the prime minister.

After the coalition partner CPN-Maoist-Center pulled out of the government of Prime Minister Oli, and joined the opposition party NC, and forced Oli to quit office, and formed a new government under Prime Minister Prachanda, Minister of Energy Janardan Sharma in cooperation with the chief executive of Nepal Electricity Authority Kulman Ghising revealed that the previous Oli administration had illegally providing major portion of the electric power to a few large industries causing outage of power for most of the days and nights to the common folks. Obviously, it indicated that Prime Minister Oli must have received many things from the owners of the industries in return for the favor his administration had done to them.

Then, to mitigate the suffering of the common folks, the People’s Republic of China generously provided Nepal with 1.2 million liter of gasoline gratis during the murderous blockade Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had imposed on Nepal in 2015 after the promulgation of the people’s constitution which Modi tried to prevent sending his high official but Nepalese political leaders refused to postpone the promulgation of the constitution that provoked Indian Prime Minister Modi to impose the deadly blockade on Nepal ignoring the critical time when the country was reeling from the devastating earthquakes.

Even though the price of gasoline was slightly more than NPR 100 per liter but it sold four to seven times the stated price. If the 1.2 million liter of gasoline sold at NPR 400 then the proceeds of selling the gas would be NPR 480 million, and if it were sold at NPR 700 per liter then the amount would be NPR 840 million. The most likely case was the gas sold at NPR 700 per liter, as the shortage of gas had pushed some people to pay any price only to get a few liter of gas at that time.

As the prime minister and even after quitting office Oli had not said publicly how and where and at what price the gas had been sold, and where the money had gone. It is not late even today for the second-time Prime Minister Oli to say how he had used the gas in the interest of the people, as the gas had come entirely for mitigating the sufferings of the common folks caused by the total stoppage of gas coming from India following the Indian sanction on Nepal.

However, the gas was a gift of China to the Nepalese people, and the recipient was the Oli’s government. So, it would not be recorded as the State revenue. Consequently, it would not show up in the annual auditing of the State accounts done by the Auditor General’s office. Therefore, the proceeds from the sale of the gas could go to anybody’s pocket. Prime Minister Oli needed to say in whose pocket the money had gone either to the people’s pocket or someone’s.

After the possible irregularities in the administration possibly for making money, what CPN-UML did during the local, provincial and federal elections might be the interest of all.

Immediately after local elections, Chairman of Nepal Peasants and Workers’ Party Narayan Man Bijukchhe publicly said that CPN-UML won the elections in Bhaktapur with the input of the massive dose of money in other words CPN-UML spent a huge amount of money on the local elections.

Chairman of CPN-Maoist Center Prachanda said the Nepalese elections had been so expensive that the poor people could hardly even stand for elections; so the election process needed to be revised so that money would not play a significant role in the elections.

Obviously, CPN-UML under the chairmanship of KP Oli must have spent a huge amount of money on the elections to win so many seats in the federal and provincial parliaments, and the local units means municipalities and village councils.

Everybody would understand positively the money CPN-UML had received or garnered without question up until Oli publicly would explain about the large sum of money received from selling the gas China had provided Nepal with gratis, and the reason for diverting the power to a few industries denying the regular supply to the common folks at the time of the previous term of office of Prime Minister Oli.

Speaking at a press conference held in Kathmandu on February 23, 2018, President of Transparency International Nepal Shreehari Aryal has said that the regulatory bodies of Nepal are so weak that even the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Vigilance Center have failed to control corrupt practices; consequently, Nepal has ranked 122^nd among 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)-2017, according to a Transparency International report published on Wednesday, February 21, 2018; in the CPI of 217, Nepal scored 31 out of 100 points; CPI uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean, the news on http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/22091 stated on February 23, 2018.

President Bidhya Bhandari nominated Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada, Ram Narayan Bidari and Bimala Poudel-Rai as the members to the National Assembly on the recommendation of Prime Minister KP Oli on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 thus making the National Assembly with its full 59 members: 56 elected and three nominated.

The meeting of the Council of Ministers presided over by Prime Minister Oli on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 recommended Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada (Jhapa), Ram Narayan Bidari (Makawanpur) and Dr Bimala Poudel-Rai (Morang) to be nominated as the members of the National Assembly after rescinding the recommendation made by outgoing Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

At a press conference held on Tuesday, February 20, 2018, spokesman for NC Bishwa Prakash Sharma accused President Bhandari of deliberately not acting on the recommendation made by the NC government for making room for the Left Alliance government to revoke the recommendation and make a new recommendation.

A few days before Prime Minister Oli took office, the Deuba government had recommended Gopal Basnet, Krishna Prasad Poudel and Chandani Joshi as the members to the National Assembly for the president to nominate but the president held on the recommendation following the request of the CPN-UML not to act on the recommendation stating the outgoing government had no moral grounds for making such seriously important recommendation.

The president's actions have been controversial time and again. In the past, too, President Ram Baran Yadav restored the job of Chief of Army Staff Rukmangad Katuwal Prime Minister Prachanda had terminated in 2009, and President Yadav did not authenticate various ordinances Prime Minister Prachanda had forward to the president. Then, current President Bhandari held on an ordinance on the National Assembly elections for nearly two months before authenticating it Prime Minster Deuba had submitted, stating the ordinance was not acceptable to all political parties after the CPN-UML opposed it. The news on http://www.myrepublica.com/news/36704/ stated.

On February 23, 2018, Gopal Basnet, Krishna Prasad Poudel and Chandani Joshi, Prime Minister Deuba had recommended on February 9, 2018 for the president to nominate them as the members of the National Assembly moved to the Supreme Court demanding the president to nominate them to the members of the National Assembly. Prime Minister KP Oli withdrew the nominations of Gopal Basnet, Krishna Prasad Poudel and Chandani Joshi from the president’s office, and recommended others. Basnet, Poudel and Joshi appealed the Supreme Court to issue an interim order for stopping the nominees of Prime Minister Oli from taking the oath of office and secrecy. The news on https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/sher-bahadur-deuba-led-government-national-assembly-nominees-move-supreme-court/ stated.

Hearing on a writ petition the three persons such as Gopal Basnet, Krishna Prasad Poudel and Chandani Joshi filed on Friday, February 23, 2018 Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba government had recommended them for the president to nominate them as the members of the National Assembly, a single bench of Justice Prakash Singh Raut of the Supreme Court of Nepal on Sunday, February 25, 2018 issued an interim order to stop swearing-in of the three members such as Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada, Ram Narayan Bidari and Dr Bimala Poudel the president had nominated to the members of the National Assembly on the recommendation of Prime Minister KP Oli after withdrawing the names of three persons previously Deuba had recommended, the news on http://setopati.net/political/118031, and in “gorkhapatra” stated on February 26, 2018.

Prime Minister Oli appointed Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada to the minister for finance, and Dr Khatiwada took the oath of office and secrecy from President Bhandari on February 26, 2018. Certainly, the interim order of the Supreme Court was only for stopping Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada from taking the oath of office of the member of the National Assembly. However, unless Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada could prove to be the member of National Assembly within six months he would not be eligible to be a minister.

Prime Minister Oli celebrated the birthday cutting two cakes: one brought by CPN-UML Secretary Pradeep Gyawali and another by the Madan Bhandari Sports Foundation to wish him “happy birthday” on Friday, February 23, 2018 when he turned 67. The news on http://setopati.net/political/117946 stated.

Indian ambassador and Chinese ambassador did not miss the opportunity of wishing Prime Minister a long life and wishing him to have good diplomatic relations with Nepal during the term of office of Prime Minister Oli. Thus, the birthday of Prime Minister Oli also became the event of diplomatic activity.

Finally, the background of Prime Minister KP Oli, he was a son of a poor farmer in Jhapa. He has studied up to the 10^th grade. Probably, he did not have time to complete it as he joined the circle of political activists to fight against the despotic panchayat rule the Shah king had thrust on the Nepalese.

Oli became the part of the Jhapa movement. Members of the Jhapa movement were often dubbed as Naxalites as they had adopted the tactics of threat, extortion and murder of the political opponents as did Naxalites. Naxalites were so called because they had started off their activities in Naxalbary in India.

Then, the members of the Jhapa movement murdered Dharma Prasad Dhakal in Jhapa in December 1973, and terrorized the panchayat politicians in Jhapa. Dharma Prasad Dhakal was the member of the Rastriya Panchayat: a kind of a parliament indirectly elected of the no-party panchayat system. Members of the Jhapa movement charged Dhakal with being the landlord exploiting the poor farmers to the extreme.

Some of the killers of Dhakal got arrested but Oli escaped miraculously, and survived. His Jhapa colleagues such as Ramnath Dahal, Netra Ghimire, Biren Rajbanshi, Narayan Shrestha and Krishna Kuikel who got arrested, were not so fortunate as Oli had been, and were killed by the police of King Birendra in the Sukhani jungle near the border to Ilam on the pretext of transferring them to the Ilam Jail in March 1974, the news in “gorkhapatra” stated on February 16, 2018.

When Oli got elected to the member of the House of Represented in 1990, he wore only flip-flop. Probably, Oli was really in rags, and was a proletariat in the real meaning of the word at that time. Today’s Oli has been different; he lives in a palace like house; he behaves like a prince. He forgot his proletariat colleagues who were comrade-in-arms and got killed at the Sukhani Jungle rather he was for reviving the dead souls of the Shah dynastic rulers.

So, as the prime minister, Oli visited the cemetery of General Kalu Pandey of Prithvi Narayan Shah recently, and promised to build a memorial to the murderer general Kalu at the site where Kalu got killed by the brave Kirtipurians. Oli did not care about the Prithvi’s descendent had almost killed Oli but his five brave colleagues at their early lives at the Sukhani Jungle.

Oli needed to visit the site where those great colleagues of Oli were killed, and pay tribute to them, and promise to build a monument to them at the site where they were killed by the despot King Birendra rather, as they had shed their blood to make Oli possible to live like a prince and be the prime minister again and again.

If Oli had seriously thought a little bit about whether Kalu or his boss Prithvi had made any contribution to make him possible to climb so high from the ground level of his life style, and to be the prime minister again and again probably he would not commit to build any memorials to Kalu and Prithvi at all. He would also come to the sense of knowing that Oli would have been no less well off than any other people living in Jhapa or elsewhere in Nepal, today if the direct rule of the descendents Kalu and Prithvi were to continue.

February 26, 2018