Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, January 7:

The top leaders of the four-party alliance today defiantly reinforced the demand for the reinstatement of the House of Representatives, issuing threats to the effect that continued status quo and any bid to consolidate regression could boomerang on the monarch himself.

“Conspiracies abound. King has failed to understand the scenario. I am sure he is not keen to talk with the Maoists yet,” said Nepali Congress (NC) President Girija Prasad Koirala while addressing a huge four-party alliance rally in the capital. He, however, expressed hopes that agiation will successfully culminate in peace talks and end of regression.

Koirala also warned the monarch to refrain from experimenting any further on the political front by picking up one prime minister after another. “Often this (experimenting) culminates in the worst for monarchs worldwide,” Koirala emphatically said warning the party workers to beware of moves to abort the current series of agitation. Earlier Janamorcha Nepal Chairman Amik Sherchan warned of possible foreign intervention even as he insisted that the monarch could be expected to consolidate his position even if that demands giving up national interests. He, however, did not elaborate on this but added that no one should expect him to make efforts to sort out the current crisis.

“No one should expect the monarch to take moves to resolve the long-standing crisis. Of course, solution lies in reviving the House of Representatives. What is also true is we do not want constituent assembly elections announced by the monarch. That must emanate in the parliament,” Sherchan said. “We cannot throttle the youth from demanding a republican order. The debate to upgrade the demand has figured in our meeting and I suggest we must do it,” Sherchan said by way of reinforcing the demand for correction in the constitutional process. Similarly, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) Chairman Narayan Man Bijukche presented the CPN-UML as the party of the “noveau royalists.”

“The absence of parliament indicates at absence of democracy. Which can be further expounded to mean that those who are backing such a system as akin to Panchas,” Bijukche said. Earlier Nepal Sadbhavan Party (Anandi) National Vice President Bharat Bimal Yadav accused Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of going on a spending spree himself even as he is making it a point to share the spoils of power with the palace by doling out money from the state exchequer. Much like other speakers, he flayed move for polls.