Indigenous leaders all set to form new party

TIKA R PRADHAN

KATHMANDU: Leaders of indigenous nationalities are on their final leg to declare a new political outfit on August 9, the World Indigenous Day.

A nine-member task force has been working round the clock at Dhulikhel since Saturday making necessary technical preparations to launch a new party.

The task force led by Dr Chaitanya Subba includes former NEFIN chairman and former CA member from CPN-UML Pasang Sherpa and Janajati intellect and indigenous rights activist Dr Krishna Bahadur Bhattachan, lawyer Shankar Limbu, Jyoti Danuwar, Bam Kumar Budha among others.

However, Chairman of the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) Raj Kumar Lekhi said that the new party would not be announced from the forum of the 18th World Indigenous Day celebration function as was widely believed.

Though all leaders were clear on forming a new party, Lekhi said they were divided over the date of announcement. Some want the new party to be launched on August 9, while some others want that the party should only be formed when the nation announces and readies for the election.

From Dhulikhel, Dr Bhattachan said over telephone to THT that they have almost completed the preparations to announce the new party on August 9. He further said the task force will begin dialogues with different sections of the

society to include them in the new party.

Addressing the inaugural session of the second national gathering of the Association of Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities (ANIJ) – the umbrella organisation of all the indigenous nationalities journalists of the country – NEFIN chairman Lekhi said a new political force was inevitable.

In the same function, Vice-chairman of CPN-UML Ashok Rai said people are seeking a new force, as the existing parties failed to deliver neither peace nor constitution.

“We have been raising the issues of some 85 per cent of the Nepali population. So we don’t need to raise arms,” Rai said, adding that, the only thing they need to do is to create awareness among the people and bring them to streets.

On the new party, Rai said it will incorporate all the regions, classes, languages, professions and castes of people. He said the new force will be based on equitable social justice.

Rai, who is facing action from his party for challenging the party’s ruling over the issues of indigenous nationalities, however, said the Janajati leaders must not take the decision of forming a new party in haste. “First we need to think up about the new party for a certain time and only then we can launch it,” he added.