Koirala mum on fight against corrupt

Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, April 19:

Nepali Congress President, Girija Prasad Koirala, today finally brushed aside the concerted demand for reorganising the party along democratic lines to intensify the agitation against regression. This quashes hope of Koirala ever dissolving the Central Working Committee (CWC) with a holistic view of inducting deserving faces after dropping nominated members.

“Is this the right time to go for infighting? Can this serve any purpose?” Koirala asked reacting to the demand from former Nepal Students’ Union president Govind Bhattarai at a function.

While Bhattarai was the only speaker who demanded that Koirala should drop sycophants from the CWC before expecting good turnout at the street demonstrations, the fact that NC should get rid of the corrupt from the party’s leadership has been raised time and again to no avail.

Koirala, who did not refer to the demand for the reinstatement of the House of Representatives, said the party should maintain its centrist course at a time when donors are backing those on the ultra right to the discomfiture of those on the ultra left. “They (donors) are marginalising parties, but we must fill the vacuum,” Koirala said, adding that whatever the monarch was doing was against the constitution. He said this referring to the appointment

of zonal and regional commissioners. Saying that “full democracy” referred to a state with monarch restricting himself to a ceremonial role, Koirala said the February 1 move has turned

the whole country to a zoo with not many able to move here and there. Referring to the latest interview of King Gyanendra in Time magazine, Koirala said: “While he has developed allergy with political parties why is he acting in a similar manner against the international community?”

Koirala also expressed disenchantment at the way Chief Justice Hari Prasad Sharma and National Human Rights Commission Chairman Nayan Bahadur Khatri backed the royal move in Australia and Geneva respectively. He said he had once told the monarch to consider the ground reality with rooting for a republican set up. Earlier, chairman of the Human Rights and Peace Society (HURPES), Purushottam Dahal, claimed that there was a definite nexus between rebels and those on the ultra right front. “A nexus exists and we must expose the same,” he said.