Dinesh In Public

FINALLY, His Majesty’s Government, as per the repeated demands of the Maoist leaders, made public the other day the whereabouts of Dinesh Sharma, a Central Member of the underground Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) along with Deena Nath Gautam, one of his colleagues. Maoists’ leaders had been calling on the government make public the whereabouts of Sharma and other Maoists activists "who had gone missing" as the primary condition to create "minimum environment" to sit for the talks with the government. And the government fulfilled the demand by not only making Sharma’s whereabouts public but also releasing him, thereby creating the "minimum environment" for dialogue between the government and the Maoists as demanded by the latter. More importantly, with the government’s latest move, the ball of dialogue is now placed squarely in the Maoists’ court. Undoubtedly, the impacts of the unprecedented announcement Sharma and Gautam made jointly—that they had, on their own free will, decided to sever their ties with the party once and forever—before the journalists could be by now reverberating through the Maoists’ echelons. And, amongst the effects, the futility of the Maoists’ cause, ideology and struggle. For, the duo, in a jointly signed press statement, further said "When evaluating the past five years of the peoples’ war, we arrived at the conclusion that incidents of violence, killings, terrorism, hooliganism and rape have increased rapidly and the rights of the general people to lead peaceful lives are being violated."

Certainly, the Maoists’ insurgency is posing as a great problem before all the countrymen and the nation. Nearly 1,500 persons, including Maoist activists, police personnel and general people have been killed during the five-year-long insurgency. As such, it has become urgent to end the ongoing insurgency through dialogue. Towards this end, the government, as pointed out by Minister for Information and Communication Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta in a statement, has honestly met the conditions set by the Maoists’ representative during talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ramchandra Paudyal. By releasing Sharma the government, without any conditions, has paved the way for the purposed dialogue between the government and the Maoists. Now, all the countrymen are waiting for the Maoists to reciprocate the government’s good intention and gesture so that a peaceful resolution to the burning issue could be found. The sooner, the better.

Intra-Party Unity

THE Nepali Congress Party has played a very crucial role in establishing democracy in the country. First, it fought vigorously against the dictatorial Rana regime and then again it struggled for more than thirty years to oust the autocratic Panchayat system. It is no wounder that a lot of people have put their faith in this party and voted it into power two times in the last three general elections held since 1991. After almost five years of unstable politics in the country, the Nepali Congress again won a majority in the third general election held a little over a year back and again formed a majority government. However, it has been quite vexing for many people, that there have been internal differences within the ruling party even after that. While the emergence of opposition voices within a democratic party is perfectly normal, what has been of concern is the impact that the internal party strife is causing to issues of national importance. Even now, when there are many serious challenges facing the nation and the government, a controversy regarding the 10th General Assembly of the ruling party is almost making it immobile. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who is also the president of the party, is having a tough time leading the government and at the same time satisfying the demands of differing leaders within the party.

Just the other day, former Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai registered a letter to PM Koirala at the party office and asked him to first implement the decisions and agreements made within the party before initiating its village, town, constituency and district level elections. Quite pragmatically former Premier Bhattarai has suggested that "It is the President’s responsibility to conduct the election of the 10th General Assembly of the Nepali Congress in a fairmanner". There is no doubt that the party that has struggled so much for establishing democracy in the country should conduct its own election in a transparent and free manner. However, just conducting public debates and creating differences will not ensure this. Such senior leaders like Prime Minister Koirala and former PM Bhattarai, who have made so much sacrifices and who have foregone personal benefit for the good of the nation, must work together and guide the party they have nurtured for almost half a century. It can be hoped the present differences within the ruling party will be solved through talks and the Nepali Congress will move ahead as a united whole for the larger interest of the party, democracy and the nation.