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Parliament meets without Koirala

     Kathmandu: The Nepalese Parliament reconvened on Friday for its first meeting after a gap of four years, but Prime Minister-designate Girija Prasad Koirala could not attend it due to ill health. The first meeting of the restored Parliament was scheduled to convene at 1 pm but was delayed by over four hours due to Koirala's ill-health. The Parliament was dissolved on May 22, 2002 after King Gyanendra took over the reins of governance citing reasons that the Sher Bahadur Deuba government was not tackling the Maoists efficiently. The House of Representatives session was today presided over by the deputy speaker, Chitralekha Yadav. Taranath Ranabhatt, the previous speaker had earlier resigned on Wednesday over allegations that he was too soft on King Gyanendra. Proceedings began with a two- minute silence in memory of the people killed during the anti-monarchy protests in the country. Koirala's swearing-in ceremony is expected to take place on Saturday. The Nepali Congress Party president was unanimously nominated as the Prime Minister-designate by the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) following King Gyanendra's proclamation to restore multi-party democracy in the Himalayan kingdom. In a significant move to bring the Maoists into the political mainstream, Koirala's Nepali Congress party also tabled a motion proposing a ceasefire with the rebels and elections to the Constituent Assembly. Deputy Speaker Chitralekha Yadav said Koirala had also invited the Maoists for a dialogue. Maoists want the Constituent Assembly to re-write the royal Kingdom's Constitution that would remove constitutional monarchy from Nepal and usher in true democracy. The session of the Lower House of parliament lasted for just over half-an-hour before adjournment. The upper house has still to meet.

A euphoric Nepal returns to normalcy (Go To Top)

     Siddarthnagar: After weeks of curfew and violence, life has bounced back to normalcy in far-flung areas of Nepal where Maoist rebels have declared a three-month ceasefire, even as steps are being taken to form a new government. In the Siddharthnagar, a Buddhist heritage site bordering India, people poured out on to the streets, to stock up on their daily household supplies. Generation Next opted to make a beeline for shopping complexes and cinema halls. Till last week, sweeping anti-monarchy protests by hundreds of thousands of people had paralyzed the impoverished kingdom and there appeared to be no end in sight from years of Maoist insurgency in which more than 13,000 have been killed. King Gyanendra finally bowed down to public opinion and agreed to revive parliament. Mainstream political parties have been invited to form the government and they promised to hold elections for a special assembly to write a new constitution, reflecting Maoist demands. The declaration of a unilateral ceasefire has been the icing on the cake and Nepal's people are relishing it. "It is feeling really nice. It's like greenery after a desert patch. After weeks of shutdowns and curfews finally markets have opened and things are getting back to normal. We are able to move out," Ram Gopal, a resident said. "It is a matter of great happiness that the people's wish has been fulfilled. A new government is going to be formed, we are very hopeful and happy," Gopal, a teacher, said. The Maoists, while announcing the three-month ceasefire, reiterated their demand that the parliament's first session on Friday make plans for a constituent assembly. The Maoist demand for an unconditional constituent assembly is generally interpreted to mean it should have the power to strip the king of his title and establish a republic. But the process came in for what many termed as an inauspicious delay as Nepal's 84-year-old Prime Minister-designate Girija Prasad Koirala was unable to attend his own swearing-in ceremony on Friday morning because of bronchitis. The decision to postpone his swearing-in means that parliament, due to open in the afternoon for the first time in four years, might not be able to make any substantive decisions.

Filial rivalries in Nepal politics (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Be it politics, business or entertainment, success often comes at a price, may even give rise to pangs of jealousy, a deep sense of heartburn and insecurity, and this appears to be a universal phenomenon. The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal has been hot news for several months, all thanks to squaring off between King Gyanendra and the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) over whether Nepal needs to retain its royal identity or go the democratic way. Now that it has been decided to reconvene Parliament after a gap of four years and to appoint a Prime Minister after an interval of 14 months, supporters of key players like Girija Prasad Koirala have decided to wash dirty laundry in public. The proverbial political axe is being wielded, and the first casualty in the Nepal Congress has been Prakash Koirala, PM- designate GP's nephew and Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala's dad. Prakash's royalist leanings have cost him and another royalist minister Narayan Singh Pun not only their party memberships, but also their ministerial sinecures. It may be recalled that Prakash was the science, technology and environment minister in the handpicked royalist Cabinet. With Nepalese Parliament being reconvened on Friday, one branch of the Koirala family is clueless about its political future. The Koiralas, also called the Kennedys of South Asia, are a divided house. The two sons of BP Koirala, Nepal's first and most popular Prime Minister, are in two camps. While Shashank Koirala, a senior leader of the Nepali Congress, has chosen to follow his uncle GP Koirala and oppose the king, his (Shashank's) elder brother Prakash has always supported the cause of the monarchy. So distant is the relationship in the family that recently Prakash Koirala formed a new party, the Nepali Congress (Nationalist). GP Koirala's daughter Sujata supports her father and so does another scion of the family -- Shekhar Koirala, son of GP Koirala's elder brother Tarini Prasad Koirala. Sujata, who in India last year at the height of the anti-royalist agitation, rather derisively called her first cousin Prakash and Manisha Koirala as "dogs of kings". In the US too, the family Bush can be said to be experiencing a similar sort of rivalry.