Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, April 25:

Leaders of various political parties, relatives, well-wishers and the CPN-UML cadres today paid their last tributes to late Sadhana Adhikari, the widow of late prime minister and UML chairman Man Mohan Adhikari, who passed away at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital yesterday. She was 80. Her body was kept at the UML’s central office in Balkhu for last tributes from 10 am till 2 pm. Besides UML leaders and cadres, Nepali Congress president

Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepali Congress (Democratic) president Sher Bahadur Deuba and Rastriya Prajatantra Party president Pashupati Shumsher Rana along with former ministers paid their last tributes before she was cremated at Pashupati Aryaghat. Dr Prakash Adhikari, the son of late Adhikari, lit the funeral pyre in accordance with Hindu traditions.

Issuing a press statement from his house arrest, UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal said that Sadhana showed rare courage in protesting against the then Rana Regime when most of the women did not even imagine to venture out of their houses. He said that her demise was an irreparable loss to the party and women activists. She was the first Nepali woman to win an election of Kathmandu Municipality held for the first time in 1951. In separate press statements, NC(D) and RPP expressed condolences to the bereaved family members and the party. In her statement, RPP spokeswoman Roshan Karki said that she was shocked over her untimely demise. Eight UML leaders, including Bamdev Gautam, Rajendra Pandey, who are under preventive detention at the Police Academy, Maharjgunj, since the royal takeover, expressed deep condolences to the family members.