These infamous KGB men

N.P.Upadhyaya

The Nepalese population would love to recall the tenure of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala in government for so many seen and unseen reasons. In fact as and when he has assumed the nation’s Premiership, a sort of mayhem has found every time its place in the national politics. It is his tenure that have miserably failed to deliver goods to the people. Instead his government and some of his chums in the government have had every time been scathingly criticized for acts of corruption and that too going every time unpunished much to the displeasure of the common men including those congress men who were deliberately debarred from entering in to the establishment considering them to be the men from the other rival camp led by Deuba or even K.P.

Koirala’s government once upon a time housed three ministers who had been declared number one corrupts not only by the ordinary population but also by his own top hat colleagues including Bhattarai. This (in) famous trio comprised of Khum Bahadur, Govind Raj Joshi and Bijaya Kumar Gachhedar. There had been one abbreviation in use then which had nothing to do with the former intelligence agency of the now collapsed USSR. KGB was the abbreviation, which took care of the names in Koirala’s cabinet. These famous personalities supposedly were close to the very hearts of the Prime Minister. Some even said then that it was this trio, which in effect guided Koirala and forced him modestly to toe their lines on domestic and international affairs.

The tragedy is that one important member of the Girija coterie then, Bijaya Kumar Gachhedar has defected to the Deuba camp. The rest of the infamous two are still left and the right arms of Girija babu. So sad.

As the luck would have it, one better name was then added to this troika’s abbreviation. However, it was decided by a number of media men to put the name of the new entrant first. Hence the letter A was added to the already renowned KGB. The full form it later took was AKGB. The letter A stood for, we were told, for Arjun Narsingh K.C. However, what was clear to all the media men and the local population was that these personalities were never caught red handed for committing foul acts as per the allegations yet the intellectuals suspected their highhandedness in nation’s domestic politics and thereby amassing wealth in the meantime. I for one believe still that unless proved guilty by the competent court, no one should be declared corrupt or whatsoever. As a media man, I too wrote some stories against them, but I’m still confused whether these politicians were really a corrupt ones and accumulated astronomical amount of wealth which could last for generations and generations to come in their private families.

I do not believe that they were corrupt as was given to understand. However, what is for sure is that these men apparently look more handsome, wealthy and arrogant these days as compared to what they were in effect before 1990 April. Some even said that one towering congress leader who had no money to stitch his "’sleeper"-an open footwear- prior to 1990 owns five posh storied buildings in the Kingdom. Thanks that CIAA has so far spared him for having been blessed by the incumbent Prime Minister? What was surprising for me when I learnt that the same congressman who asked five rupees from his close friend for stitching the sleeper is yet to refund the money back to the one who tentatively saved his prestige then?

Coming back to the real point, the Royal Nepal Airlines is the hardest hit of Girija regime. The RNA perhaps trembles out of fear as and when Girija comes to power. The previous Dhamija scandal and the current one with Lauda Air. Girija babu denies the allegations. He could be correct but the population needed convincing answers from Koirala. It would be nice if Koirala revealed the real stories behind the two most infamous scandals.

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