As predicted, the Janata Samajbady Party-Nepal (JSP-N) has withdrawn its support to the current coalition, primarily of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), the Maoist Central (MC) and the Rastriya Swatantra Party.

That this event will occur was widely resonating in the political arena following the public pronouncement by Prime Minister Prachanda that he had triggered the disintegration of the JSP for the survival of his government.

The Unified Socialist Party also may follow suit as it has agreed to form a Parliamentary Committee to look into the alleged involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Rabi Lamicchane in the cooperative scam, which is squarely disagreed by the coalition supremo K P Oli, the former prime minister and the president of the UML. It has, however, been marginally compensated by the Ashok Rai-led JSP, which joined the coalition within hours of this political development. No wonder then that JSP-N president Upendra Yadav has filed a petition in the Supreme Court labelling the registration of the new party as an unconstitutional decision of the Election Commission.

Yadav emerged on the political scene riding on the crest of the Madhes Movement opposing discrimination right from the Rana times prevalent in so-called terai because of its location on the foothills of the mountains but now invariably understood as a cultural and lingual space, Madhes. The people of terai felt that this age-old deprivation could be addressed by the formation of a single province of Madhes. However, it was not to be, and the Madhesi political activists had to be satisfied with a fractured Madhes Pradesh as it exists today.

Yadav was a political activist marked by a frequent change of political colour like a chameleon. First, he participated in the NC-led civil disobedience movement and later joined the UML. He again entered the MC and later formed his own party Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum. In the Constituent Assembly election of 2008, it won 30 seats when it was swept by the MC with 120 seats, with old parties like the UML and the NC bagging only 34 and 33 seats, respectively. However, his trajectory took a nose-dive following which his party received 10, 16 and 12 seats in the elections of 2013, 2017 and 2022. He has now been left with 5 seats with 7 seats possessed by the rival JSP led by Rai.

Yadav has been criticised for favouring the Yadavs as exemplified by the support of Ram Baran Yadav of the NC as the President. His unusual lust for power was reflected in the assumption of a ministerial post under any government. He is also blamed for the failure to address the problems confronting Madhes.

That Madhes faces several problems was glaringly exposed in one programme held by the Centre of Democratic Engineers Nepal, which is a well-wishing institution of the Nepali Congress (NC). The secretary of the NC, the charismatic Gagan Thapa, had graced the programme, chaired by Laxman KC, its president, as the chief guest. Three speakers, Paban Bhattarai, Associate Professor of Tribhuvan University, Arjun Jung Thapa, former secretary, and Biswa Paudel, the former vice chairman of the National Planning Commission, had highlighted on some problems of Madhes duly proposing a way forward for its development amidst several senior as well as young engineers of various disciplines.

Bhattarai mentioned that Madhesh Pradhes faced the problem of water security, which has been aggravated by the lack of its proper measurement. Saying that what cannot be measured cannot be managed, he predicted a dire future for Madhes. In the absence of such a mechanism, people have been making ad hoc statements saying that Madhes has plenty of water on one hand and its paucity on the other. Whether the underground Nepali aquifer is a single entity or isolated one or whether it extends beyond the Nepali border was also mentioned as an important issue.

Addressing the development issue of Madhes, Thapa focussed on the Hulaki Road, the course followed by a postman in delivering letters in early times, which is yet incomplete despite its existence since the time of Padma Shumsher. He said that decisions have not been made wisely, citing roads used for paddy drying as the traffic is virtually nil on that road section and the construction of six-lane roads leading to a virtual dead-end as at Chandani Dodhara in the west.

Poudel said that Madhes has neither been able to make headway toward the hills and mountains because of a seemingly psychological allergy existing between the hill and the plains people. Nor has it been able to benefit from the porous border existing between India and Nepal to the desired extent. He also held the reluctance of the Nepali rulers to invest on infrastructure development mentioning the denial of Ranodeep Singh, then the Prime Minister when the British wanted to extend the Darjeeling network to Dhankuta in Nepal, responsible for allocating the necessary budget at the present.

The water problem of Madhes is very serious indeed as brought forward by Bhattarai. This problem was addressed very wisely in the past by constructing ponds of various sizes in Madhes. Accordingly, the columnist has scaled up this old wisdom by digging 176 ponds in Mahottari and Khotang districts in the mountains beginning from the highland coming down to the midland and lowlands on either side of the water gullies to prevent landslides, floods, wildlife attack, lightning, climate change and above all wildfires. Had the ponds been constructed, the wildfires would not have created havoc as they bring down the temperature and increase humidity. Given that we are expected to receive more than the average rain this year, floods are likely to cause considerable damage in the coming days. Yadav can certainly stage a comeback if he realises this living reality.