Oli-led Government-4

Enforcing New Constitution Against The Will Of …

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

The elections to the five main elected offices of the new governance system as prescribed by the new constitution had been the victory of the political skill of Prachanda over the immature politicians. Even at the adverse third position his party had been placed at after the elections to the constituent assembly held in 2013, Prachanda had skillfully maneuvered the political situation to complete the adoption of a new constitution and then successfully implement it. The interference of the mighty southern neighbor in the Nepalese politics did not deter Prachanda to go ahead with the enforcement of the new constitution.

The completion of one election after another to prime minister, then to speaker, deputy speaker, president and finally to vice president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal on October 31, 2015 had been the completion of the first stage of the enforcement of the new constitution. The elections had strictly followed the Articles of the new constitution. For example, the Article 70 of the constitution has stated that the president and vice-president shall represent different gender or communities: the president is a woman, and the vice-president a man representing different communities; the Article 76(9) has stated that the cabinet shall be of 25 ministers at the maximum: cabinet formation has not been completed, yet; the Article 92 (2) has stated that one of the speaker or deputy speaker shall be a woman: the speaker is a woman, the deputy is a man.

Prachanda steered the coalition of the three major political parties such as NC, CPN-UML, and UCPN-Maoist to the successful adoption of a new constitution even the Madheshi front called UDMF remaining out of the constituent assembly. His brilliant political skills had been amply demonstrated bringing the political-nut-hard-to-crack KP Oli, and the immature but shrewd politician Sushil Koirala to accept various provisions in the new constitution that they previously unaccepted although it had come at the high cost to the Madheshis and the ethnic Nepalese.

After the NC having the highest number of seats in the parliament chose to go along with the UDMF at the behest of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi only to get elected its leader Sushil Koirala to the second term of prime minister, Prachanda set up a coalition of the rest of the political parties including the RPP-Nepal to elect KP Oli to the office of prime minister. Surely, the Prachanda’s success in forming a new coalition had to do with the brazen interference of Modi in the Nepalese political affairs. The election of Oli to a new prime minister had taught Modi and his favorite Madheshi leaders of the UDMF that the tremendous physical and economical power of Modi had not been able to bend the patriotic Nepalese leaders. However, those unscrupulous guys had not accepted the defeat, yet, as Modi had not lifted the embargo on the supplies to Nepal, and the Madheshi leaders had continued to wage a war that had to be settled by mutual understanding rather than by the force of one party or another. Modi had been paying high moral and monetary prices for both the embargo on the supplies to Nepal, and for supporting the Madheshi protest movement in Nepal, and he had been causing the tremendous troubles to the Nepalese.

Now, the successful holding of the elections to the president, vice president, speaker and deputy speaker had established that CPN-UML had the president and the deputy speaker while UCPN-Maoist had the vice president and the speaker. The woman leader of the CPN-UML became the president, and the woman leader of UCPN-Maoist the speaker, the vice-president and the deputy speaker: both were men of UCPN-Maoist and of CPN-UML respectively.

CPN-UML did not lacked the aspirants to the presidency of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal following the constitution crafted by the people’s representatives but the aspirants lacked the sincerity, and integrity. Both the former prime ministers Madhav Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal were the aspirants to the presidency but both of them had been heavily tainted while holding the public office of prime minister even though their political standing qualified them. Both of them were not neutral: Madhav Nepal was facing to the south while Khanal to the north. Consequently, Deputy Chairwoman of CPN-UML Bidhya Devi Bhandari became the most qualified person for the presidency.

The office of the vice president was allocated to the UCPN-Maoist. The president had been the woman; so the vice-president could be a man. The UCPN-Maoist awarded the office of the Vice president to one of the former commanders of the People’s Liberation Army. That man was Nanda Bahadur Pun even though he had been publicly known so far as simply Pasang or Nanda Kishor Pun “Pasang”.

The Nepalese media had doubted the election of Pun to the vice-president stating the Nepal Army had objected to his elevation to the vice-president, as some events might make him the president: the commander-in-chief of the Nepal army. That suspicion had been proved wrong, as the coalition of all political parties except for the NC, and UDMF voted for Pun in a block.

Probably, another PLA commander Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal” could be a claimant for the office now Pun held if Thapa along with his political boss Mohan Vaidhya ‘Kiran’ had not lost the right path to the adoption of a new constitution. A bunch of these talented and courageous leaders had wasted their talent and energy to teach a few lessons to their chairman Prachanda but they themselves got shoved into a political trashcan. Now, they must have been repenting for the past misdeeds. For them, coming back to the mainstream of the politics would be the challenging task if not impossible.

Almost drowned NC leaders tried to keep politically afloat playing the political game of the opposition in the parliament. They knew that they had not sufficient votes for getting their candidate for the office of president to get elected but they fielded one of the senior leaders Kul Bahadur Gurung as a candidate. If they had not fielded a candidate meant the candidate of a coalition of their opposition political parties would be elected unanimously making as if the NC had supported the candidate. That was why these guys said that they had fielded a candidate to uphold the tradition of the parliamentary system but the main reason was to demonstrate the opposition to the candidate fielded by the coalition of all fourteen political parties.

The new president needed to learn lessons from the mistakes of the past president. Former President Dr Ram Baran Yadav had been very smart to work as a partisan leader dishonoring his office. He had overruled the decision of the prime minister on firing the then Chief of Army Staff Rugmangud Katuwal curtailing the prerogative of the prime minister in 2009 leading to the political uncertainty and even causing the death of the constituent assembly that was supposed to craft a new constitution. Thereafter, Dr Yadav publicly advised the political leaders what to do what not to do not once but several times stepping out of the boundaries of the office of the ceremonial president.

The former vice-president became even worse than the former president. Vice-president Permananda Jha had acted as one of the UDMF cadres rather than the vice-president of Nepal. He took the oath of the office of vice-president in a foreign language proving he was not a real Nepalese national. He donned the local clothing to prove that he was imported Nepalese rather than a native. President Dr Yadav had at least worn the Nepalese dress and a hat to bind all Nepalese together he used to say. The Nepalese media had it that Vice-president Jha in his former incarnation as the justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal had been heavily tainted by the corruption. UDMF played a main role in electing such a corrupt man to the prestigious and honorable position of the vice-president.

A total of 549 members of parliament out of 597 voted for the candidates for the president in the Legislature-Parliament on Wednesday, October 28, 2015; 48 lawmakers mostly belonging to UDMF remained out of the voting process. Bidhya Bhandari was elected by a majority of 327 votes through the secret ballots. Her rival Kul Bahadur Gurung: the candidate fielded by the NC got 214 votes. Eight votes were invalidated. She became the first woman head of state of Nepal, and the second President of the new Nepal. A block of votes of 14 political parties including her party went to her favor. Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha swore in Mrs. Bhandari as the president on Thursday, October 29, 2015.

The same block of votes elected the candidate for the vice-president Nanda Bahadur Pun defeating his rival: the candidate of the NC Amiya Kumar Yadav on Saturday, October 31, 2015. The same block of votes had elected the speaker and deputy speaker of the parliament, and of course the prime minister, too.

Jealous of the smooth transfer of power and seeing Nepal completing its political transitional period, and the Madheshi protestors supported by interventionist Modi not making any dent in the political events taking place in Kathmandu, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs of India Vikas Swarup said that India was aware of the agreement Nepal had reached with China on the import of petroleum products, but the agreement would not address the issues of Madheshi parties that had been blocking the Raxual-Birgunj entry point in protest, according to the news posted on ‘thehimalayantimes.com’ on October 30, 2015.

If the spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs of India were to be a little wiser he would know that the petroleum agreement Nepal had reached with China was not for resolving the issues raised by the Madheshis but for meeting the immediate need of the Nepalese that had been the victims of the Modi’s undeclared embargo on the Indian supplies to Nepal. The spokesman needed to deliver the message to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that blocking the supplies from India to Nepal would not resolve the political issues Nepal had. Rather Modi could have contributed to the resolution of the political issues in Nepal mediating between the Nepalese establishment and the Madheshi leaders to end the Madheshi protest movement that Modi had been so aggressively supporting so far without any tangible results.

One thing anybody could ask the Indian spokesman was whether Modi had ordered the NC leaders to boycott the talks with UDMF leaders. The Nepalese media had been reporting that the NC leaders refused to be on the team for holding talks with the UDMF leaders. NC leaders had successfully adopted the new constitution a certain portion of which had been unacceptable to the Madheshi leaders now it was necessary to make some amendments to the constitution to suit the needs of the Madheshi and ethnic people; participation of the NC leaders was indispensable to this end. Modi knew as the NC guys did that an amendment to the new constitution was not possible without the participation of the NC. Then, what did Modi and his guys wanted? Whether they were really for the political instability in Nepal. Really that might be the reason for the NC guys not taking part in the talks with the UDMF leaders. India said the oil agreement with China would not resolve the issues raised by UDMF. That had been enough hint at India might make another move for deposing the current popularly elected Nepalese leaders as did in 1960s.

Victory of all four candidates to different offices of the new governance system, and of course of Oli to the office of prime minister had been obviously intolerable not only to the NC but also to Modi, too. This victory alone had been the victory of Prachanda and his colleagues over the regressive forces of the Koiralas guided by the Modi’s wrong policy. It also was the victory over Sushil Koirala, the dissident Madheshi leaders, and the unbelievably morally bankrupt and Hindu fanatic Interventionist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that had been waging a proxy war in Nepal. Modi did not mind killing any non-Hindus. Probably he must have thought Nepal had been a non-Hindu State; so, it was time to finish it off, too. That was why Modi had been holding the thirty million Nepalese for the ransom of meeting the demands of the protesting Madheshi leaders. However, Modi needed to understand that “Nepal is not a Bhutan”. He would not able to meddle in the Nepalese political affairs for long. Madheshi leaders had lost not only their dignity but also the Nepalese face they had been wearing.

Now, we have seen the true colors of the Nepalese politicians. It was not that somebody exposed their colors they themselves did it.

First, let us take the Maoist leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai: probably the Marxist thinker turned into the Indian agent. I thought that Dr Bhattarai was a patriot and was dedicated to the country. Some of us even appreciated him for riding the Nepal-made vehicle with the brand name ‘mustang.’ At that time I did not think that the vehicles were made mainly of the parts imported from India, and the industry owner was the Indian origin. Even then when Dr Bhattarai became the prime minister in 2011, Dr. Bhattarai had disclosed his identity riding the ostensibly homemade but actually India-made vehicle but I was not so careful to notice it. I valued some remarkable work he did for expanding the narrow roads in Kathmandu, and for bulldozing the illegally built compound walls and even houses. Now, Dr. Bhattarai had been carrying a carcass of the Indian agent on his back. He totally betrayed the trust Nepalese had placed on him.

I was not surprised when former Minister for Housing and Physical Planning Bimalendra Nidhi openly declared that he was an Indian agent. He even challenged everybody saying, “I am an Indian agent, what can you do?” Certainly, nobody could do anything against the former minister but he had so proudly and publicly stated what he had been known for. I had simply suspected that he must be an agent of the southern neighbor for all the time he had been in the NC. Ultimately, he disclosed it thinking nobody could harm him anymore. Not surprisingly he wanted to award the contract on the construction of the Kathmandu-Hetauda fast-track highway: one of the high cost infrastructure projects to an Indian company at almost the double price it could be done at 70 billion Nepalese rupees. When the former cabinet secretary disclosed this devious deal with an Indian company, Nidhi was so furious at his disclosure, Nidhi was for taking actions against the cabinet secretary stating the secretary had made public the national top secret.

Nidhi was only the brave one to declare publicly what he had been from among the so many Indian agents working for the Nepali Congress (NC). The Koirala brothers and sisters had perfectly enjoyed being the Indian agents. Matrika Prasad Koirala was the pro-Indian NC leader. So he could earn the favor of the then India-saved King Tribhuvan, and he became the prime minister bypassing his half brother BP Koirala that had led the majority of the NC. Matrika gradually returned the people’s mandate to Tribhuvan: another pet of India in 1950s.

Tribhuvan took the refugee in the Indian embassy in 1950, and he escaped to India for saving himself and his family from the onslaught of the Rana-autocratic family rulers. The Ranas had been so powerful prime ministers that even the king had to run away from them. In fact, they had dethroned him for some months before he came back to Nepal. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru returned him to Nepal with the victory over the evil Ranas.

At that time, Nepalese could have deposed the king, too but the NC leaders on the advice of the Indian politicians had saved him, and returned him the crown he had lost to the Rana prime ministers for more than a century. Tribhuvan returned back home triumphantly thanked to the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru whereas the NC leaders BP Koirala and Ganeshman Singh that had led the people’s movement against the despotic Rana rulers remained in back.

Tribhuvan owed Prime Minister Nehru a debt of saving his crown. What he did was he gave the vast water resources of Nepal to Nehru through his Prime Minister Matrika Prasad Koirala in 1950s. Thus, the waters of the Koshi and Gandaki rivers went to India. Prime Minister Nehru adamantly demonstrated what he could do building a dam on the Koshi River just on the border between Nepal and India submerging the vast agricultural land in Nepal but irrigating the major portion of the agricultural land in the Indian State Bihar. Similarly, the vast water resources diverted from the Gandaki River to India giving a little water to Nepal for irrigation. Thus, Tribhuvan paid his debt to Nehru at the highest possible cost to Nepal.

Today, everybody could see that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been trying to demonstrate what he could do to Nepalese. He had been arrogantly telling the Nepalese leaders to do what he said otherwise they would need to face the consequences of his wrath. In fact, the Nepalese people had been suffering from the curse of shortage of petroleum products and other supplies, as Modi had ordered his officials on the border to stop any trucks carrying any supplies to Nepal making thousands of Nepal-bound trucks stranded on the border.

Madheshi leaders had been the tools of Indian Prime Minister Modi. I knew that Madheshi leaders had the just demands for their representation in the Nepalese governance system but they had forgotten that they had sufficient power and energy for fighting for their cause on their own rather than standing on the shoulders of Modi for throwing stones at the Nepalese police. They unwisely had been taking the favor from Modi for blocking the border points to stop any flow of the supplies from India to Nepal. Any logical person would think what these Madheshi leaders had promised to give Modi for his direct assistance in their movement for their just cause. So, any patriotic Nepalese would not wish Madheshi leaders for winning the current war with the Nepalese establishment.

Fortunately, former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala lost his bid for the office of prime minister to KP Oli otherwise I did not know what Koirala would need to present Prime Minister Modi with as a payment for his kind support. Nepal might lose certain sovereignty but to what extent I could not say. Nepalese had seen how far Koirala could act without shame and with any consideration for the country only to have the office of prime minister. Sushil had clearly proved that the Koirala brothers had been the agents of India. Previous Koiralas worked under cover but current Koiralas such as Sushil and Shashank had worked openly to sell what I did not know to Modi. Did such Koiralas really deserve to be called Nepalese? Certainly not, if they were to behave as they did in the immediate past, and they were to continue to work for India.

Bijaya Kumar Gacchedar became a courageous patriot. He was really a native of the Madhesh in contrast to other so-called Madheshis that had recently acquired the Nepalese citizenships by hook or crook. So, they did not feel any shame at making quite obvious that the Indian establishment guided them. Gacchedar was now a deputy prime minister and he had been keeping a low profile but he did not need to be scare of being a patriot. Any patriot needed to face many challenges no doubt about that but patriots did not fear of anything except for the dependency of the motherland on others.

Indian Ambassador Ranjit Rae had been working as an agent rather than a diplomat that needed to feed the correct information on Nepal to the Indian leaders. Ambassador Rae needed to tell his boss Modi that Nepalese had been so strong that they would not be giving in to any pressure from India. He also did not tell Modi that India would fail in getting Sushil Koirala elected as a prime minister for a second term. Obviously, Ambassador Rae did not do that otherwise Koirala would not need to suffer the humiliating defeat in the election. Even now, Ambassador Rae could tell Modi that blocking the Nepalese supplies trucks on the border had been a failure indeed. Rather he did not think twice calling the Madheshi leaders to his embassy office and boldly tell them to vote for Koirala. That was really a shame on the diplomat of the largest democracy.

The recent political events and disclosure of the true colors of the Nepalese politicians had shown that India had sufficient agents in the Nepalese political parties working for India. For example, the NC had almost half of the leaders India-oriented. The Maoists also had it share in having the Indian agents in them. The obvious one was surely the former Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai. No doubt, the CPN-UML had the Indian agents in it. Some said that Madhav Kumar Nepal had been the declared India-oriented leader of the CPN-UML. Some of Madhav’s critics had even questioned why Madhav did not change his name from Nepal to India. All the Madheshi political parties except for the Gacchedar’s had been the Indian agents. If Modi were to pull out his support for those Madheshi leaders they would immediately lose everything. Even now they had not been winning anything but gradually losing ground in Nepal.

Indian Prime Minister Modi’s unscrupulous move of blockading Nepal had been blessing in disguise. It had created the incredibly tremendous patriotic feelings in the minds of Nepalese living in Nepal and elsewhere in the world. That was a strong invisible force that Nepalese had been using to stand up the unfavorable situation created by the big neighbor. The Indian blockade also pushed Nepalese to negotiate with China for the supply of petroleum products. That might be the opening of another conduit for Nepalese to have the precious fuel. China had been not only happy to provide Nepal with the needed fuel but also declared that China would always honor the sovereignty and independence of Nepal. It must be a big slap on the face of unashamed Indians that did not feel it a sin to trouble others. It might be the beginning of the end of the Indian monopoly on the trade with Nepal.

Indian leaders must have been alarmed by the Nepalese election to the speaker, deputy speaker, then the president and the vice president despite the Indian trying to prevent such political events through the direct intervention in the Nepalese affairs blocking the supplies to Nepal. So, Modi had hurriedly dispatched the deputy leader of his BJP party Jolly to Nepal on October 28, 2015. Mr. Jolly met with Prime Minister Oli as reported on the Nepalese media but with what message he had come to Nepal was not clear, yet. Both the Nepalese leaders and Indians had been shy to disclose the message. However, nothing had changed in the battle field meant both the parties had been firmly standing on their own ground.

The clear sign of Nepal was entering into the new phase of the clean administration might be the 23-point code of conduct issued to the UCPN-Maoist ministers working in the cabinet of Prime Minister KP Oli. The code of conduct had clearly stated that the ministers should not appoint any of their relatives or family members to the personal secretaries, the ministers should work for the greater interest of the nation rather than the party's, and they also should follow the constitution, prevailing acts and laws while doing their official duties, a news on myrepublica.com stated on October 27, 2015. http://myrepublica.com/politics/story/30219/ucpn-maoist-issues-23-point-code-of-conduct-for-its-ministers.html#sthash.fu5JrI2o.dpuf

November 1, 2015