Kathmandu, November 7:

Vice-president of the Nepali Congress, Ram Chandra Poudel, has threatened to launch agitation — both from the street and the parliament — if the Maoists continued to turn deaf ear to their demands.

“The Maoists do not have faith in politics of consensus. Their decision to recall ambassadors appointed by the previous government is the latest example of their disregard for consensus politics,” Poudel said at an interaction organised by the Ganesh Man Academy. The NC leader criticised the former rebels for renaming some of the municipalities.

Poudel said the dream of the late Ganesh Man Singh would come true only when peace and democracy were institutionalised.

CPN-UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari said it was Ganesh Man Singh, who spearheaded the 1990’s movement for democracy by bringing together leaders from the NC and left parties.

“The alliance between the Maoists and other parties wouldn’t have been possible if an alliance of NC and left parties had not been forged in the 1990s. The country could never have witnessed epoch-making changes if the alliance hadn’t materialised, he added.

CA member Nilamber Acharya said that the law of the land should ensure equal treatment for all. “The use of stolen vehicles is still going unabated. No one should be discriminated or treated as privileged under the rule of law,” he said, referring to the Maoists. He said that the Maoists would have been compelled to abide by the law had the UML, too, stayed in the opposition.

Another CA member Nabindra Raj Joshi said a lot could be learnt from Ganesh Man Singh’s struggle for democracy.