New Delhi
7 October 2009
the new Constitution, so they must shed obstinacy and forge a consensus with the ruling
CPN(UML) and Nepali Congress, according to former Nepalese Prime Minister Surya
Bahadur Thapa.
"There is no other alternative," he said in an interview to this newspaper here on
Wednesday.
He was responding to a question about a report in an Indian newspaper which quoted
Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda as saying that he will not accept
anything short of a new national government led by the Maoists.
Mr Thapa described the Maoist leader's dictate as "nonsense" and "illogical."
He added: "Yeh uchit nahi hai (It is not appropriate). It is wrong to say that only if a
Maoist-led Government is in power can the Government be truly national."
Mr Thapa thought Prachanda and his Maoist colleagues have raised the bogey of
civilian supremacy to deflect attention from their own shortcomings, and their abhorrence
for checks and balances in a parliamentary democracy has exposed their true intentions.
"Their meaning of civilian supremacy is, for example, to place the judiciary under
parliament. Their intention is not right," Mr Thapa said.
New Delhi has rolled out the red carpet for Mr Thapa, who heads the Rashtriya
Janashakti Party. His party does not have any MP in the Constituent Assembly. Mr
Thapa himself lost in the Constituent Assembly election of 2008.
Mr Thapa has met with a cross-section of the Indian leaders and officials here including
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha LK Advani, National Security Adviser MK
Narayanan, Prime Minister's Special Envoy Shyam Saran and Foreign Secretary
Nirupama Rao.
He will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Minister of External Affairs
SM Krishna on Thursday. He has sought a meeting with UPA Chairperson and Congress
President Sonia Gandhi.
Mr Thapa said that India has reasons to be worried if the Maoists continue to hold the
Constituent Assembly to ransom and miss the May 2010 deadline for writing the new
Constitution.
The Maoists are smug that the Constituent Assembly has to adopt certain aspects of the
new Constitution with a two-third majority, which cannot be possible if they sit out.
The Constituent Assembly has not met since Prachanda quit as Prime Minister in May
this year.
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