Girija Prasad Koirala dead

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 20 March: Five-time Prime Minister and three-time president of Nepali Congress Girigja Prasad Koirala, 85,died Saturday at 12.10 in the afternoon .
He never regained consciousness after he went into a coma at five in the morning at the residence of his daughter Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sujata Koirtala at Mandikatar.
Girija was born in a town in the Indian state of Bihar across his hometown Biratnagar.
His father Krishna Prasad Koirala had gone into self-exile during the Rana regime.
Girija was born 1925.
He was the youngest of three sons of Krishna Prasada who became prime ministers; the first was Matrika and the second was BP Koirala, Nepal’s first elected prime minister after the fall of the Rana regime.
An emergency meeting of Nepali Congress decided to put his body for public viewing at Dashrath Ranghashala from eight in the morning.
A funeral process will begin at two in the afternoon and his body will be cremated with state honours at Pashupatinath Aryaghat.
The government announced a public holiday Sunday and a three-day state mourning for a transitional head of state after the declaration of a republic and a former prime minister.
Thousands of people, including President Dr Ram Baran Yadav visited Mandikatar and paid their last respects.
Koirala’s body will be placed for public viewing from eight in the morning t the Rangashala Sunday.
Koirala was released from hospital Wednesday after blood transfusion.
A heavy smoker, he suffered obstructive pulmonary edema.
Koirala suffered obstructive pulmonary edema.
He dominated Nepali politics in and out of government since he became prime minister for the first time on 29 May 1991 following the country’s frist multi-party elections after the collapse of the partyless panchayat.
He spent seven years in jail during opposition politics and waa involved in the hijacking of a Royal Nepal Airlines aircraft from Biratnagar to Jogbani across in the border in Bihar during his anti-panchayat politics during 12 years in self-exile.
The hijacking of the aircraft with money of Nepal Rashtra Bank was the only incident involving a national carrier.
Giraja confessed he was involved in printing of illegal Indian currency notes during his self-exile to topple panchayat rule.
He was considered an organizer in the party.
The Madhav Kumar Nepal government decided to nominate his name for the Nobel Peace Prize for what the government called his contribution to the peace process by attempting to bring Maoists into the peace process.
Girija attempted to influence national politics even until his dying days by being coordinator of the controversial high-level political mechanism of which Maoist Chairman Prachanda wand UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal were members,
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal was only an invited member who avoided the mechanism’s meetings.
The mechanism’s declared intention was to pus the delayed peace process and the drafting of a constitution by the 28 May deadline.
Giraja, amid charges of nepotism, pushed PM Nepal to appoint his daughter Sujata deputy prime minister.
Girija called mid-term elections in 1993 and lost the vote to UML which emerged as the largest political party to form the first elected communist government in the world even as communist regimes collapsed in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe.
Communists emerged at Nepal’s main political force.
In the 2008 April constituent assembly and parliamentary elections, Maoists emerged as the biggest party replacing the Nepali Congress.
Congress until then was the dominant party in Nepal.
(Note: The story was delayed thanks to Naya Nepal with two days of load-shedding around Dhumbarai.)
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