On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
The much-awaited elections for the House of Representatives and Province Assemblies have been held on 20 November, despite disputes, firing and confrontation in several polling centers, on the whole, elections were conducted peacefully nationwide.
When the “No, Not Again” campaign became viral on social media, the octogenarian and outdated leaders were very much scared. Even after developing an unholy alliance among the five parties having different ideologies, they were not sure about their victory. With the fear of a humiliating defeat, Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda changed his electoral constituency from Chitwan to Gorkha in search of a safe place. He had no courage to face the election from his home constituency Chitwan.
The election agendas of different political parties in the five-party ruling alliance are highly dominated by hypothetical things which are far away from reality. Talking about infrastructural development, the parties have distributed big dreams but from where they manage billions of rupees to complete such ambitious projects, they are unable to tell the necessary resources needed for completing them. Even a layman can understand that these election agendas have been included just to make fool the voters once again. UML is no exception as its election manifesto too is full of such ambitious projects.
Moreover, Sher Bahadur Deuba, Pushpakamal Dahal, and Madhav Nepal among others are saying that the present ruling alliance is for defeating the regressive elements. Those already failed leaders are claiming themselves as the offensive or progressive forces, but they needed to forge a five-party alliance to save their political existence. Clearly, they were unable to contest the election at their own strength, therefore, they had to forge an electoral alliance. What they did since the adoption of the new constitution, is open to all. They have destroyed all the government organs. The judiciary is not an autonomous organ due to the entrance of partisan politics in the court. The government bureaucracy has become defunct due to partisan division. The corruption-controlling body CIAA has become a powerless organ which is unable to catch big fish. Can those who have destroyed the state organs be the offensive forces?
A tiny country Nepal is divided into seven provinces and 753 local bodies with around 40 thousand elected but paid people’s representatives. The government is paying their salary and allowances. The government is taking foreign loans to meet the additional expenditure needed to function these seven provinces and a large number of local bodies. If the trend of taking foreign loans will continue, very soon, the foreign debt amount will cross the limit and Nepal may become a failed nation.
Today, during the election campaign, the “progressive” leaders were found saying that they would provide free visas and free tickets to the youths going to the Gulf countries for a dirty and dangerous jobs. Those “progressive” leaders are unable to ensure providing jobs to Nepali youths within the country. They are committed to offering Nepali citizenship certificates to Indian and encouraging Nepali youths to go for foreign jobs. Doesn’t it make clear that those alliance leaders are working in the Indian interests? They are becoming the prime minister, and executive chief of the government time and again turn by turn. Every time, when a new prime minister assumes office, they are found handing over one after another river of Nepal to India.
They give big talks about making the country rich by exporting electricity, in fact, the government is exporting electricity at a very cheap price, which has benefited India enormously. If the government will become ready to provide electricity to the local industries at the same price, Nepal can be transformed into an industrial nation. The government is discouraging local industrialists and investors from establishing industries. Due to the inappropriate industrial policy, the investors have diverted their investment in the import business by closing down industries.
Those outdated leaders are talking nonsense things and making fool the people. They have already lost people’s trust. That we can assume from the declining turnout on the 20 November voting. The Election Commission has stated that only 61 per cent of the vote was cast in the 20 November elections, which is comparatively low. It means, the voters have rejected the existing political parties and their agendas. Clearly, the political agendas of the “progressive” force have been rejected by the people. To make it clear, the “loktantra” imposed in the interests of foreigners has already been rejected by the people.
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