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Sushil-led Government-52: Performances Of Prime Minister Sushil Koirala
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
Performances of Prime Minister Sushil Koirala had been the talk of the nation for some weeks. Mr. Koirala had smartly listed 148-point achievements he made during the last one-year of his reign. He shamelessly claimed the credit for the SAARC Summit he had held in Kathmandu holding the people at the gunpoint. He emptied the Kathmandu streets for the heads of State and government to travel from the hotel to the summit venue. He also listed the number of hydropower agreements he had reached with the Indian State agencies as his remarkable achievements but the Nepalese experts in hydropower development said that those agreements were deadly to Nepal. One of his main achievements had been not to honor the previous agreements. Prime Minister Koirala had been a hurdle to build a consensus on crating a new constitution; so, he needed to quit the office, NC leader Balkrishna Khand told reporters. The ruling-partner CPN-UML also challenged Prime Minister to expedite the crafting of a new constitution following the two-thirds-majority process.
To say, ‘enforce the previous agreements’ has been the fashion in the Nepalese politics but both the parties of signatories had never taken it seriously not to mention, ‘fight for that’. In the country where the order of the Supreme Court of Nepal had been often shoved into a trashcan, so, agreements among the political parties and the governments should be better left to the people’s movements for enforcement.
Gyanendra Shah took the opportunity of the eve of the democracy day celebration in 2015 to raise his ugly head again and dared to say something about democracy that his grandfather, his father and he himself had not honored to enforce its values and norms rather became absolute rulers only to be shoved into a dumpster. Nepal had been a republic; so, Gyanendra could address the nation or anybody as a regular citizen can do, nothing more. The more Gyanendra talked the more his devilish deeds had been exposed.
CPN-UML leader Madhav Nepal has already exposed him to some extent, as he did not get the job of the prime minister once Gyanendra had advertised openly for any Nepalese citizen to apply for. Madhav Nepal would have accepted the offer of the position of prime minister had Karan Singh came with but he came with the offer of making ‘baby king’. So, he outright rejected it, said Madhav Nepal.
“After I got released from the house arrest, an Indian leader Karan Singh had brought up the proposal of ‘Baby King’ during a meeting at our party office in Balkhu,” said Nepal. “But I rejected the proposal outright. It was already late by then.” The news posted on ekantipur.com on February 20, 2015 quoted Madhav Nepal.
Read: http://www.ekantipur.com/2015/02/20/top-story/no-secret-deal-with-ex-king-nepal/401925.html
On Sunday, March 1, 2015, chairman of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) Pashupati Shamsher JB Rana said that the understanding reached between then King Gyanendra Shah and the erstwhile major political parties in 2006 had become irrelevant within couple of days. A political understanding was reached with Shah at the presence of Indian government’s emissary Karan Singh in Kathmandu. "But my impression is that the understanding couldn’t last because two days after that agreement was reached, Shyam Saran (the then Indian foreign secretary) gave a completely different statement, making the previous understanding irrelevant," Rana told a group of journalists at an interaction on Sunday, according to the news posted on Myrepublica.com.
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/printable_news.php?news_id=93176
Former NC President Girija Prasad Koirala while he was the prime minister in 2008 after the elections to the then CA used to say, ‘baby king’ or ‘ceremonial king’ before the CA declaring Nepal a republic had been the clear indication of an agreement; what agreement NC and CPN-UML had reached with the former king should be made public, said Chairman of Madheshi People’s Rights Forum-Nepal Upendra Yadav in response to what Gyanendra had said on the eve of the democracy day on February 18, 2015. Chairman Yadav also said that the hesitation of NC and CPN-UML to declare Nepal a republic had amply demonstrated that they must have reached an agreement.
Read: http://www.ratopati.com/2015/02/20/210404.html
NC had been resisting declaring a republic but the Maoists and Madheshi leaders had put so much pressure on Girija, he had to give in. At that time, Maoists and Madheshi had two-thirds majority in the then CA. Today, the position of majority has been reversed; NC and CPN-UML has two-thirds majority. However, NC and CPN-UML would survive only ethnic people, Madheshis, Maoists and disadvantaged people wanted them to be otherwise these apparently mammoth parties have been on the way to extinction. Today, these two parties have already fallen into the list of dangerous species of extinction. One symptom of these two parties distinctively on the list of extinction had been that they had been doing everything possible to corner the Madheshi and ethnic people believing the Maoists had been done forever, and they could fix the Madheshis.
If the Madheshi and ethnic people were to fight to the finish, it would surely lead the country to disintegration. That was one way of making NC and CPN-UML disappearing from the political planet. I had biased opinions of these parties but I was the true well wisher to open their eyes blindfolded by the two-thirds majority in the CA. So, NC and CPN-UML would be better off to go along with all the Nepalese people giving all the people of their fundamental rights.
Coordinator of the 30-party front and Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda said that listening to the propaganda of the NC and CPN-UML, foreign power centers including the UN agencies had made telephones calls to him and said, “How you are going to demonstrate your strength when you don’t have it at all?” His front and Prachanda had been determined to show the strength of the people’s movement. He also appreciated the contribution of the Kathmandu Nevahs to the people’s movement stating every movement had been successful only after participation of the Kathmandu Nevahs in such past movements. So, he said why the Nevahs should not participate actively in the initial period of the movement and finished off the regressive forces rather than waiting for the final moment. He had been speaking to the event held by the ‘Nevah Mukti Morcha’ in Kathmandu on February 20, 2015
Read: http://www.ratopati.com/2015/02/20/210402.html
A group of top leaders including Prime Minister Sushil Koirala flew on seven helicopters to the Parbat district to participate in the ‘maha yagya’ held by Swami Kamal Nayanacharya at Ward no. 8 Panchakotdham of the Baglung municipality, the news on ratopati.com stated on February 21, 2015.
It might be the Hindu fanatics including Prime Minister Koirala and his partners in the governance on one hand and Nepalese people of other faiths on the other hand were heading to a showdown. Mr. Koirala had been spending the State resources and his own time and energy on such socially, economically and politically unproductive rather deadly religious communalism, and a meaningless showdown.
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala: This religious event held in the remote area must be one of the greatest achievements of your one-year term in office you made it at the huge cost to the poor people if it were not paid by the Indian Hindu fanatics. The second greatest achievement is the chronic shortage of cooking gas in Nepal causing tremendous troubles to the consumers. The third greatest achievement must be the billions of rupees Prime Minister Koirala along with his supply minister Sunil Thapa, and his assistant minister Giri Bahadur KC must have made quickly and easily selling the Nepal-bound gas in the Indian market. Minister Sunil Thapa said that he was importing seven thousands more gas. This addition would be more money for all of them. Enjoy the corruption days under the umbrella of the NC and CPN-UML government. Nepalese would have a shortage of gas as long as the price of gas for industrial uses in India would remain higher than the regular price in Nepal. These are the real achievements of Mr. Koirala.
Mr. Koirala held Eighteenth SAARC Summit in Kathmandu holding the people at the almost gunpoint. Yes, it was one of his major achievements but at what cost, he should tell the people. The Summit had cost several billions rupees worth of the economic loss to the nation not to mention two billion rupees he had spent on decorating and cleaning the Kathmandu Metropolitan for the summit. Did he need to declare two-day holidays for the summit? People lost to earn their livelihood for two days. What the Koirala government had done was excess to the people believing the government could bully the people. Did he need to impose an unannounced state of emergency? He could hold the Summit without causing any troubles to the common folks. Then, we could call it an achievement but he was so afraid of the security of the heads of state or government that he froze the streets of Kathmandu for three days.
Spokesperson for the government also Minister for Information and Communications Minendra Rijal read out the 148-point achievements of the Koirala government formed on Feb 11, 2014 to the reporters at the Singhadurbar Prime Minister’s Office in Kathmandu on Friday afternoon, February 20, 2015, the news on myrepublica.com reported on February 21, 2015.
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/printable_news.php?news_id=92620
Spokesman for the government Minister Rijal said that all the agreements on hydropower projects Prime Minister Koirala reached with Indians were the greatest achievements of his government. If we read the article of the expert in the hydropower Ratna Sansar Shrestha published in the Annapurna post on January 21, 2015, the Project Development Agreements for the Upper Karnali Project reached with GMR Company and for the Arun III Project with Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited had been deadly loss to the nation.
"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal in August. This was a visit by an Indian prime minister to Nepal after a gap of 17 years, and it has further helped to strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries," the myrepublica.com news quoted Minister Rijal. This was recorded as another achievement of the Koirala government. It might be who knows. In fact, it was. Modi promised to provide Nepal with one billion dollars worth of credit at the discount rate. Prime Minister Koirala could ask his cadres to write project proposals and take out the credit from the Indian bank for funding those projects, and then asked the same people to write off the projects. That had been how the people in power made money. Was not it a daylight robbery? Certainly, it was.
What Mr. Rijal did not say was that Mr. Koirala failed in making the visit of US President Barack Obama to Nepal a real. Mr. Koirala had invited the US president to visit Nepal at the time of his India visit during the republic day in the last week of January 2015 but the US government declined the invitation. If President Barack Obama were to visit Nepal that visit would have been the tremendous achievement of Mr. Koirala. Unfortunately to Mr. Koirala, it did not happen.
"The formation of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and CEED (Commission of Enquiry on Enforced Disappearances) had been entangled for the past eight years, but the government has now formed the two commissions, which are a major part of the peace process. It shows that consensus is possible all the time among the parties if they so wish," the news on myrepublica.com quoted Minister Rijal.
The international human rights organizations and the international community did not accept the mandates given to those two commissions. They said that those commissions had been for pardoning the culprits rather than reconciling with the victims and their families. Those commissions were also not for compensating the families of the victims for the loss of their loved ones. Those commissions would simply legitimize the killings of thousands of Nepalese by the Nepal army and the Maoists as well. Was it not shame to Mr. Koirala to stake out the setting up of these commissions as his achievements? Certainly, it was.
Giving full shape to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is also listed as an achievement of the government during the past one-year of his government, the news on myrepublica.com stated.
It would be surely his greatest achievement if it were able to ensure fundamental human rights to the common folks, and take actions against State agencies that have been violating the human rights indiscriminately. Prime Minister Koirala and his Home minister Bamdev Gautam had been the helpless onlookers of the daylight violence of human rights by the police, and the State employees. If they had been sincere to uphold the human rights, then, certainly it would have been his greatest achievement. His achievements so far had been to appoint his sycophants and loved ones to the chief commissioner of the NHRC, and to its members. Mr. Koirala had secured their jobs at the NHRC at least for four years. They could enjoy all the remunerations and benefits provided by the State, to support the drastic human rights violations committed by the Koirala government: holding Nepalese at the gunpoint for smooth SAARC Summit for example.
Another greatest achievement of Prime Minister Koirala if you like had been to let the land mafia grabbed the public land worth billions of rupees in Kathmandu. The ratopati.com news has stated that a man has built a house on the State-owned land but the prime minister has ignored it; so other agencies such as the concerned ward of the Kathmandu metropolitan, and the department of land reform had been unable to do anything. Not only that even the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority (CIAA) that had been very smart to catch the small fishes red-handed had been silent on the millions of rupees worth of State land grabbed by the land mafia.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/02/23/211132.html
Speaking to the reporters in Dhangadhi: far western Nepal on February 19, 2015, NC leader Balkrishna Khand said that Prime Minister Sushil Koirala had been a main hurdle to promulgating a new constitution if Prime Minister Koirala were to resign then a new government could be formed comprising the opposition parties, too, the news on myrepublica.com stated. "The present government is a major obstacle to consensus between the political parties but no one wants to speak this reality,” Khand told reporters in Dhangadhi. "Prime Minister Koirala should step down to pave the way for consensus." He claimed that the parties have failed to reach an agreement on key contents of the constitution because UCPN-Maoist and Madhes-based parties weren’t included in the government. "We must create space for UCPN-Maoist in the government," he added.
It must be a ploy to make Mr. Khand’s boss Sher Bahadur Deuba a new prime minister. If Mr. Khand’s statement had any truth why Mr. Khand and Deuba could not take a stand on the need for an inclusive government to reach a consensus on a new constitution. So, any rational politicians or common folks with a bit of knowledge of the Nepalese politics would hardly believe in the Khand’s statement.
Speaking at the news conference held by the Nepal Press Union of Dang at Tulsipur of the Dang district on March 3, 2015, NC Leader Balkrishna Khand challenged the leaders of CPN-UML to quit the government. Referring to the press reports on the CPN-UML walking out of the government, he also said that the CPN-UML leaders had not been happy with the NC trying to bring the opposition political parties to a consensus on a new constitution; he also labeled the CPN-UML as being like an eunuch, according to the news on the ratopati.com.
http://www.ratopati.com/2015/03/03/213590.html
Threatening to walk out of the government if the NC were not ready to push the ongoing-majority process of constitution crafting, the ruling-partner CPN-UML decided to mount pressure on the largest party NC to proceed with the Constituent Assembly process. The CPN-UML was scheduled to hold talks with the NC on Tuesday, March 3, 2015. “The communist party believes that its stay in government will not make sense if the constitution is not promulgated at the earliest. The objective of this government is to come up with a statute. If that doesn’t happen, there will be little meaning to cling to power,” the Ekantipur.com news quoted Secretary of CPN-UML Pradeep Gyawali.
Speaking at the press conference held in Rajbiraj on February 20, 2015, Chairman of Tarai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) Mahanta Thakur said that secessionism would prevail in the nation if the new constitution were not to address the issue of Madhes, according to the news on Ekantipur.com. “Currently, there are two major political lines in Madhes region,” said Thakur at the press meet, “One of them is demanding for a separate Madhes nation and another one seeking Madhes province in this nation. But there is a growing danger that secessionism, as demanded by CK Raut, would prevail in the country.” “Our key demand is the promulgation of a new constitution with federalism and no hill district should be inducted in Madhes province,” said Thakur. “This is not our new demand. It has been mentioned in the agreement signed by late Nepali Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala, UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal and UCPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.” The news quoted Mahanta Thakur.
Not only the Madheshi people would ask for the separation from Nepal but also other ethnic people including the Khas people would separate from Nepal if the current two-thirds majority parties were to promulgate an exclusive constitution. Currently, it might be difficult to see Nepal disintegrating into numerous States but the current government run by the eccentric leaders had been pushing the Nepalese to this trend, no doubt about that. The foolishness of the current government trying to promulgate an exclusive constitution would take the Nepalese people to another movement that might correct the folly of the current government with the two-thirds majority, and put Nepal on the right track of reconciliation and consensus. The leaders having the two-thirds majority in the current CA had been quixotic; they believed that the two-thirds majority was everything for them, and they could crush the people’s aspirations for an inclusive constitution. That was absolutely wrong.
Chairman of CPN-UML KP Oli has sensed that Nepal might break up into pieces but he did not say he was responsible for it. He blamed an invisible power for it. He did not elaborate whether the invisible power was national or international but he surely felt the unfortunate situation. He was speaking to the ministers, political leaders, and other well wishers that visited his home at Balkot in the Bhaktapur district on February 23, 2015 to congratulate him on the occasion of the sixty fourth birth anniversary, according to the news posted on ratopati.com.
Read; http://www.ratopati.com/2015/02/23/211346.html
KP Oli’s colleague rather a comrade Madhav Nepal poke a fun on him saying the man with the qualification of the ‘eighth grade’ running the country could not anticipate a better status than today. Madhav Nepal had been emboldened to say such thing, as he received the best management award from a little known international organization for doing nothing better than corrupting the State administration when he had been a prime minister for about two-and-a-half years in the past. That was how Madhav could sell his award to the public. That award must be an addition to his CV for applying any prime ministerial job in the future.
Obviously, Madhav Nepal was correct even in both the cases but I was not for taking the personal educational qualifications to the public. Any undergraduate or graduate degree was only a formal qualification but informal qualifications might have been the reasons for KP Oli becoming the supreme authority of the current political situation. One of his informal qualifications had been the steroid in his blood that excited him to speak like a man with an extraordinary power that could disregard anybody.
This political triumph of the two-thirds majority would be a curse on the nation if we were not to have an inclusive constitution (not one imposed by the two-thirds majority), and the country was to go back to the conflict. The two-thirds–majority parties and the opposition were heading to the head-on collision. The two-thirds-majority political parties have the police, armed police and the army but the opposition has the people despised, humiliated and discriminated against.
March 4, 2015
