We had no other choice: Koirala
Former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala has said his party was compelled to bring about changes in its statute following the royal takeover of February 1, this year.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the 11th convention of his party at Jawalakhel in Lalitpur Tuesday afternoon, Koirala defended his party’s decision to omit reference to ‘constitutional monarchy’ from the objectives of his party statute. ‘Since King himself violated the norms of constitutional monarchy, there was no way we could continue to stick to it,” said Koirala. He further added that the demand for ‘total democracy’ being demanded by the alliance of seven opposition parties was a ‘borderline’ with republicanism. ‘Now it is up to people to decide whether they want the institution of monarchy or not,’ he added.
Most of the opposition leaders came down upon the Nepalese monarch heavily for his decision to take direct control of the government. Chairman of pro-left People’s Front Nepal (PFN) Amik Sherchan said how could the parties believe that the king had kept open the doors for dialogue when the doors of the Birendra International Convention Centre (BICC) had been shut. The government denied the BICC as convention venue to NC at the last minute though the latter had already deposited the rental.
In an interview broadcast over the state-run media on Monday, King Gyanendra said that he was open for dialogue (with the opposition parties). He even compared differences between him and the mainstream parties as that between husband and wife.
Addresing the NC’s inaugural function, general secretary of CPN (UML) Madhav Kumar Nepal warned that people and parties would not go for the King if the monarch thought that he doesn’t need them either.
Leaders of major Indian political parties, who had arrived Kathmandu at the invitation of the NC, expressed their solidarity and support towards Nepal’s pro-democracy movement. A senior leader of ruling Congress (I) of India, Anil Shastri, said there was a wave of democracy flowing around the world and that Nepal could be no exception. The closed session of the NC’s 11th convention is to kick off at the party’s under-construction building at Sanepa from Wednesday morning. Nominations for the party’s president and half of the central committee members will be filed Wednesday morning. NC president G P Koirala is understood to be contesting for the party’s top job once again. NC central coomittee member, Narahari Acharya, has already announced his candidacy for the top job. Nearly 1,500 NC delegates from around the country will vote to choose their new leadership on Thursday. nepalnews.com by Aug 30 05 Related News
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