Political stalemate continues, Maoists effort to stop Nepal takeover

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 16 May: A two-week political stalemate continues as Maoists Saturday attempted to stop the takeover of a majority government led by former CPN-UML Chairman Madav Kumar Nepal.
Prime Minister and Unified CPN(Maoist) Chairman Prachanda held hour-long discussions with RPP-Nepal Chairman Kamal Thapa and sought support for a government led by MJF—the kingmaker with 53 seats in parliament.
RPP-Nepal has four seats in the CA and parliament.
Nepal has collected the firm support of 286 legislators from Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, TMLP and 14 other fringe parties and independents.
Nepal need the support of 15 more members of parliament to from a government.
MJF is divided over extending support to a Nepal-led government.
Fisticuffs broke out at the party’s parliamentary meeting where a section led by Bijaya Kumar Gachedhar, lending support for Nepal, demanded correction of a central committee decision either to lead a new government or extend conditional outside support to a Nepal government.
MJD is demanding firm support for Madesh demands as a pre-condition for support for a new government.
But two parties of a three-party Madesh joint front—TMLP and NSP—have supported a government led to be led by Nepal.
Discussions on drafting a new constitution has been sidelined; no discussions of the delayed process have been held after the deadlock worsened by the publication of a video take revealing a Maoist game-plan to destabilize the Nepal Army into which they demand the integration of 19,000 combatants in camps under UN watch.
In the embarrassing video, Prachanda said Maoists had only 7,000 combatants whereas UN has verified 19,000 plus combatants.
Prachanda also said the party planned to purchase weapons from stipends being received by combatants from government and donor for a state takeover.
Prachanda also said the combatants would be integrated in the state army to start a rebellion; the revelation of such a plan comes immediately after a bloody rebellion in the Bangladesh army.
Maoists could still be integrated in the army in small numbers who would be overwhelmed by bigger presence of professional soldiers.
Prachanda said a rebellion in the state army after integration was possible because Maoist combatants are politically trained.

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Narendra Kumar Basnet elected

Kathmandu, 16 May: Narendra Kumar Basnet has been elected chairman of Himalayan Distillery by the board of directors.
Raj Bahadur Shah has been appointed managing director.
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